LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



D0Q17t,7H2fib 




Qass. 
Book 



M 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/emotions01mcco 



THE EMOTIONS 



JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LL.D. 

PRESIDENT OF PRINCETON COLLEGE; AUTHOR OF "METHOD OF DIVINE GOVERNMENT," 
"INTUITIONS OF THE MIND," ETC. 



nP 







NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

743 and 745 Bkoadway 

1880 



N V 






Copyright, 1830, 
By JAMES McCOSH. 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. 0. HOUOHTON AND COMPANY. 



PKEFAOE. 



I AM not satisfied with the account which has been 
given of the feelings and emotions in our books of mental 
science, and thence transferred into the common thought 
and literature of modern times. 

The word " feeling " in English, and the word " sen- 
sibility " in French, with their cognate phrases " feel," 
" sentiment," and " sentir," are very vague and am- 
biguous. They may embrace two such different mental 
properties, as sensation on the one hand, and emotions, 
as of fear, hope, grief, and anger, on the other. Some 
writers lose themselves and confuse their readers by 
speaking of all our mental states, even our intellectual 
exercises, as feelings. The word " Gefiihl " in German 
is scarcely less ambiguous, sometimes designating mere 
affections of the senses, at other times our higher faiths. 

Those who translate English, French, and German 
into Latin and Greek, have always experienced a diffi- 
culty in getting words in these classical languages to cor- 
respond to those I have named in the modern tongues. 
It is a curious circumstance that we have no such loose 
phrase in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures as our "feel- 
ings." 

In these circumstances it is surely desirable to have 



IV PREFACE. 

the emotions separated from the feelings, and to have a 
renewed attempt to give an analysis, a description, and 
classification of them, as distinguished from other mental 
qualities. 

The vagueness of the idea entertained favors the 
tendency on the part of the prevailing physiological psy- 
chology of the day to resolve all feeling, and our very 
emotions, into nervous action, and thus gain an impor- 
tant province of our natirre to materialism. 

In this work I treat of the emotions as psychical acts, 
but I do not overlook their physiological concomitants 
and effects. I enter little into controversy. My aim has 
been to expound the truth, and leave it to shine in its 
own light. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Page. 

Analysis of Emotion 1 

BOOK FIRST. 

FOUR ELEMENTS IN EMOTION. 

CHAPTER I. 

FIRST ELEMENT: APPETENCES. 

Sect. I. What Appetences are 7 

II. Primary Appetences . . . . . .9 

1. Love of Pleasure and Aversion to Pain. 2. Pro- 
moting Good of others. 3. Personal Attach- 
ments. 4. Tastes and Talents tending to act. 
5. Bodily Appetites. 6. Love of Society. 
7. Love of Esteem. 8. Love of Power. 9. Love 
of Wealth. 10. Esthetic Feeling. 11. Moral 
Sentiment. 

III. Secondary Appetences 16 

IV. {Supplementary.) Evolution of Emotions . . 21 
V. {Supplementary.') Do the Derivative Appetences 

bear a. Conscious Reference to the Orig- 
inal Ones 23 

VI. Motives 25 

VII. Differences of Appetences in Different In- 

dividuals 27 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAQK 

VIII. Conspiring Appetences 30 

IX. Conflicting Appetences 31 

X. Dominant Appetences 35 

XI. Undeveloped Appetences . . . . 37 

XII. The Motiveless Man 40 

CHAPTER II. 

SECOND ELEMENT: THE IDEA (PHANTASM). 

Sect. I. Nature op the Idea which calls forth the 

Emotion 42 

II. Works of Fiction 53 

III. Association of Ideas in Emotion . . . 61 

IV. Spontaneous Flow of Thought . .72 

CHAPTER III. 

THIRD ELEMENT: EXCITEMENT WITH ATTACHMENT AND 
REPUGNANCE. 

Sect. I. Their General Nature 77 

H. Action and Reaction of Feeling . . .84 
III. Nature restoring itself .... 85 

CHAPTER IV. 

FOURTH ELEMENT: THE ORGANIC AFFECTION. 
Some Empirical Laws 88 



1. Idea of Good soothes, while Idea of Evil de- 
ranges the Frame. 2. Organs affected. 3. Bell's 
and Darwin's Observations. 4. Conclusions 
provisionally established by Darwin. 5. Ex- 
pressions are produced by Emotions. 6. Truth 
in Physiognomy. 7. Mingling of Sensation of 
Pain with Emotion. 8. Effect of Imaginary 
Scenes. 9. Sympathy. 10. Bodily States pro- 
duce Emotion. 11. Emotion craves for Ex- 
pression. 12. What Effect of restraining Ex- 
pression. 



CONTENTS. Vll 

BOOK SECOND. 

CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION OF EMOTIONS. 
CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

DIVISION OF THE EMOTIONS . . .111 

CHAPTER II. 

EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

Sect. I. Retrospective Emotions 115 

Self-Satisfaction or Regret : Complacency 
or Displacency ; Self-Esteem or Self-Dissatisfac- 
tion ; Self-Congratulation or Self-Reproach ; Self- 
Sufficiency or Self-Depreciation ; Self- Adulation 
or Self- Accusation ; Mortification ; Bitterness ; 
Chagrin ; Pleasant Memories ; Self-Approbation 
or Self-Condemnation ; Self-Gratulation or Self- 
Humiliation; Repining. Moral Approbation 
and Disapprobation : Testimony of a Good 
Conscience ; Remorse. Benig.vancy : Thank- 
fulness. Anger : Irritation ; Temper ; Indigna- 
tion. 

n. Immediate Emotions 123 

Joy and Sorrow : Content and Discontent ; Glad- 
ness and Depression ; Cheerfulness and Dejec- 
tion ; Good and Bad Spirits ; Rapture and Mel- 
ancholy. Pride and Self- Humiliation : 
Self-Conceit ; Self-Respect ; Humility ; Vanity ; 
Haughtiness ; Contempt ; Disdain ; Scorn ; Sneer- 
ing ; Meekness ; Repining ; Peevishness ; Sulki- 
ness ; Disgust ; Good and Bad Humor ; Sour- 
ness of Temper. Pity : Hardness of Heart ; 
Sympathy with Joys and Sorrows ; Envy ; Trust 
or Suspicion ; Rejoicing in, or Jealousy of, Suc- 
cess of Others. 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

PAOD 

III. Prospective Emotions 136 

Surprise ; Astonishment ; Admiration ; Wonder ; 
Veneration. Hope and Fear : Anticipation ; 
Expectation; Assurance of Hope; Apprehension; 
Dread ; Terror ; Shyness ; Shame ; Modesty and 
Impudence; Horror; Despair; Anxiety; Disap- 
pointment ; Hope of Approval. 

CHAPTER III. 

EMOTIONS CALLED FORTH BY INANIMATE OBJECTS. THE 
ESTHETIC. 

Sect. I. JEsthetical Theories 148 

II. Place of Sensation in ^Esthetics . . . 153 

III. Physical Beauty 157 

Sound ; Form ; Color. 

IV. Intellectual Beauty 163 

Relations of Identity and Difference, Whole and 
Parts (Means and End) ; Resemblance (Classes) ; 
Space ; Time ; Quantity ; Active Property ; Cau- 
sation (Final Cause). 
V. The Idea raising the Esthetic Feeling . 169 
VI. What is the true Theory of Beauty? . 176 
VII. Influence of Association on Taste . .178 
VIII. Complexity of the 2Esthetic Emotion . 179 

IX. The Picturesque 181 

X. The Ludicrous 184 

XI. The Sublime 189 

XII. Beauty in Natural Objects .... 192 
Trees ; Mountains ; Waterfalls ; Ocean. 

XIII. Scenery of Different Countries . . . 201 

XIV. The Fine Arts . . . . . .207 

Architecture ; Sculpture ; Landscape Gardening ; 
Landscape Painting ; Historical Painting. 



CONTENTS. IX 

BOOK THIRD. 

COMPLEX EMOTIONS. 

CHAPTER I. 

CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS. 

PAGE 

Sect. I. Affections and Passions 215 

IT. Love 216 

III. Love of the Sexes 218 

IV. Emotions come in Groups 222 

V. Temperament . . . ... . .224 

VI. Temper 226 

VII. Prepossessions 227 

VIII. Prejudices 229 

IX. Fickleness of Feeling 231 

X. Puling Passion ....... 232 

CHAPTER II. 

MOTIVES SWAYING MASSES. 

Sect. I. Community of Feeling . . . .237 
II. Reaction of Public Sentiment . . .241 
III. An Unwritten Chapter on Political Econ- 
omy 245 

Conclusion 251 



INTRODUCTION. 

ELEMENTS INVOLVED IN EMOTIONS. 

Four persons of yery much the same age and tem- 
perament are traveling in the same vehicle. At a par- 
ticular stopping-place it is announced to them that a cer- 
tain individual has just died suddenly and unexpectedly. 
One of the company looks perfectly stolid ; a second 
comprehends what has taken place, but is in no way 
affected ; the third looks and evidently feels sad ; the 
fourth is overwhelmed with grief, which finds expres- 
sion in tears, sobs, and exclamations. Whence the differ- 
ence of the four individuals before us ? In one respect 
they are all alike, — an announcement has been made to 
them. The first is a foreigner, and has not understood 
the communication. The second had never met with the 
deceased, and could have no special regard for him. The 
third had often met with him in social intercourse and 
business transactions, and been led to cherish a great es- 
teem for him. The fourth was the brother of the de- 
parted, and was bound to him by native affection and a 
thousand interesting ties, earlier and later. From such 
a case we may notice that in order to emotion there is 
need, first, of some understanding or apprehension. The 
foreigner had no feeling, because he had no idea or be- 
lief. We may observe further that there must be, sec- 
ondly, an affection of some kind, for the stranger was not 
interested in the occurrence. The emotion flows forth 
l 



Z INTRODUCTION. 

from a well, and it is strong in proportion to the waters, 
— is stronger in the brother than in the friend. It is 
evident, thirdly, that the persons affected are in a moved 
or excited state. A fourth peculiarity has appeared in 
the sadness of the countenance and the agitations of the 
bodily frame. Four elements have thus come forth to 
view. 

First, there is the affection, or what I prefer calling the 
motive principle, or the appetence. In the illustrative 
case, there are the love of a friend and the love of a 
brother. But the appetence, to use the most unexcep- 
tionable phrase, may consist of an immense number and 
variety of other motive principles, such as the love of 
pleasure, the love of wealth, or revenge, or moral ap- 
probation. These appetences may be original, such as 
the love of happiness ; or they may be acquired, such as 
the love of money, or of retirement, or of paintings, or 
of articles of vertu, or of dress. These moving powers 
are at the basis of all emotion. Without the fountain 
there can be no flow of waters. The passenger who had 
no regard for the person whose 'death was reported to 
him was not affected with grief. The two who loved 
him felt sorrow, each according to the depth of his affec- 
tion. 

Secondly, there is an idea of something, of some ob- 
ject or occurrence, as fitted to gratify or disappoint a mo- 
tive principle or appetence. When the friend and brother 
of the departed did not know of the occurrence they 
were not moved. But as soon as the intelligence was 
conveyed to them and they realized the death, they were 
filled with sorrow. The idea is thus an essential ele- 
ment in all emotion. But ideas of every kind do not 
raise emotion. The stranger had a notion of a death 
having occurred, but was not moved. The idea excited 



FOUR ELEMENTS IN EMOTION. 3 

emotion in the breasts of those who had the affection, be- 
cause the event apprehended disappointed one of the 
cherished appetences of their minds. 

Thirdly, there is the conscious feeling. The soul is in 
a moved or excited state, — hence the phrase emotion. 
Along with this there is an attraction or repulsion : we 
are drawn toward the objects that we love, that is, for 
which we have an appetence, and driven away from 
those which thwart the appetence. To use looser phrase- 
ology, we cling to the good, and we turn away from the 
evil. This excitement, with the attractions and repul- 
sions, is the conscious element in the emotion. Yet it all 
depends on the two other elements, on the affection and 
the idea of something fitted to gratify or disappoint it. 
The felt excitement or passion differs according to the 
nature of the appetence and the depth of it, and accord- 
ing to what the idea that evokes it contains. A smaller 
gain or loss does not affect us so much as a greater, and 
the greatness or smallness of the gain or loss is deter- 
mined by the cherished affection. What is a loss to one 
is not felt to be so by another, because the ruling pas- 
sions of the two men differ. 

Fourthly, there is an organic affection. The seat of 
it seems to be somewhere in the cerebrum, whence it in- 
fluences the nervous centres, producing soothing or ex- 
citing and at times exasperating results. This differs 
widely in the case of different individuals. Some are 
hurried irresistibly into violent expressions or convul- 
sions. Others, feeling no less keenly, may appear out- 
wardly calm, because restrained by a strong will ; or they 
may feel repressed and oppressed till they have an out- 
let in some natural flow or outburst. But it is to be ob- 
served that this organic affection is not the primary nor 
the main element in anything that deserves the name of 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

emotion, such as hope and fear, joy and sorrow, reproach 
and despair. A sentence of a few words announces to 
a man the death of his brother, and reaches his mental 
apprehension by the sense of hearing. First he under- 
stands it, then he feels it by reason of his cherished affec- 
tion, and then there is the nervous agitation. Emotion 
is not what * it has often been represented by physiol- 
ogists, a mere nervous reaction from a bodily stimulus, 
like the kick which the frog gives when it is pricked. 
It begins with a mental act, and throughout is essentially 
an operation of the mind. 

He who can unfold these four elements and allot to 
them their relative place and connection will clear up a 
subject which is only imperfectly understood at present, 
and show what emotion is in itself, and what its place in 
the human constitution. Each of these aspects has been 
noticed in works written both in ancient and modern 
times. The Scottish school of metaphysicians, and es- 
pecially Dugald Stewart, have sought, but not in a very 
searching manner, to determine man's springs of action. 
It will be shown that Aristotle and the Stoics knew that 
in all emotion there is a phantasm or opinion involved. 
Dr. Thomas Brown has given us an eloquent descrip- 
tion of the mental excitement, which, however, is chiefly 
left to novelists, who often make mistakes. Physiologists 
have had to take up the organic action, hitherto with 
not much success. But so far as is known to me, the 
four elements have not been exhibited in their combina- 
tion and their mutual relation by any one. 



BOOK FIRST. 
THE FOUR ELEMENTS IN EMOTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

FIRST ELEMENT: APPETENCES. 
SECTION I. 

WHAT APPETENCES ARE. 

By the word appetence I understand what is com- 
monly but vaguely designated by "motive," "spring of 
action," "disposition," "inclination," "affection." But 
all these have larger and more indefinite, not to say am- 
biguous, significations, and have more or less of the ele- 
ment of will. It is necessary to remark thus early that 
appetence has nothing in it of the nature of voluntary 
action, which belongs to a very different department of 
the mind. It is simply a tendency in the mind to crave 
for an object for its own sake. It is not desire ; it pre- 
cedes desire and leads to it. It is not action, but a spring 
of action. The phrase I prefer is a convenient one, as 
the noun has cognate adjectives, appetible and inappeti- 
ble. It has often been incidentally noticed, though it 
has seldom been formally announced, that, as the basis of 
all emotion, there is a mental principle determining its 
nature and its intensity ; this I call an appetence. 

It would be of great service to every branch of mental 
science to have an approximately good classification of 
the appetences by which mankind are swayed. This is 
a difficult work, more so than a classification of plants 
or animals, the determining motives being so many and 
so varied in appearance and in reality. Some seem to 



8 ' FIRST ELEMENT: APPETENCES. 

act under no guiding principle, as if on an unaccount- 
able impulse ; but if we reflect, we shall find that they 
must have been pursuing some end, indulging a lust or 
passion, or restlessly seeking a change of state or posi- 
tion. In many cases the man himself could not tell us, 
and we could never discover, what swayed him, but we 
may be sure that there was a glittering object attracting 
him. Every man we meet with, hurrying to and fro on 
the streets of a great city, dancing in a ball-room, or 
idling in a summer saunter, has, after all, Ian end which 
he is seeking. " For every man hath business and de- 
sire, such as it is." It may be possible to form, if not a 
perfect, a good provisional arrangement of man's springs 
of action. 

It is obvious that men cannot be swayed by every con- 
ceivable motive. No man can be made to choose pain 
as pain. He may choose pain, but it is supposed to pro- 
mote some other end which has power with him, because 
it may secure pleasure, or reputation, or moral good. 
There are motives swaying some which have little or no 
power over others. Multitudes are led by the love of 
property or of reputation, while others scarcely feel these 
inclinations. Of some, we are sure that they are incapa- 
ble of doing a mean or dishonorable deed. Of others, 
we believe that they will never perform an act of benev- 
olence or of self-sacrifice. When a crime is committed, 
there may be certain persons suspected ; there are others 
of whom all are sure that they have had no participation 
in it. Let us try to ascertain the motives by which all 
mankind are swayed, and. which we call: — 



PRIMARY APPETENCES. 9 

section n. 

PKIMARY APPETENCES. 

I. Every man is swayed by the love of pleasure and 
the aversion to pain. This is not the result of delibera- 
tion, or an exercise of choice ; it is instinctive. We shrink 
from suffering as suffering ; we lay hold of enjoyment as 
enjoyment. Through a great part of our waking mo- 
ments we are influenced by these ends, — seizing this, and 
avoiding that. Even when we resist these motive pow- 
ers, — as when we stretch forth our hand to ward off a 
blow intended for our neighbor, — we feel them, and have 
to counteract them by some higher considerations. 

Little more need be said on this subject ; indeed, little 
more can be said. "Pain" and "pleasure" cannot be 
defined ; this, not because of their complexity, but of 
their simplicity, there is nothing simpler into which to 
resolve them. They do not need to be defined, for all 
sensitive beings know what they are. I rather think 
that all pain originates in a derangement of our organ- 
ism. But it is not felt as pain till perceived by the con- 
scious soul. 

The question arises, Is this the only consideration by 
which man can be influenced ? The language used by 
many leaves upon us the impression that this is so, — it 
is so in their estimation. Some theorists derive all our 
motives from this one. This, however, is not the view 
which presents itself at first sight, which shows such an 
infinite variety of other attractions, such as kindness, 
sympathy, the desire for power and for society. But 
they tell us that we have found power and social inter- 
course leading to enjoyment, and they argue that the 
very idea of these, as associated with pleasure, raises 



10 FIRST ELEMENT : APPETENCES. 

appetence. While the principle doubtless ha3 its modi- 
fying influence, it cannot account for the whole phe- 
nomena as exhibited in human nature. There are appe- 
tences other than those looking to pleasure and pain, 
such as the love of children for parents and for brothers 
and sisters, arising so early, abiding so steadfastly, and 
so marked in individuals and in families, that they are 
evidently in the very nature and tendency of the soul. 1 

II. Man is inclined to promote the happiness and avert 
the unhappiness of his fellow-men. No doubt he may be 
able to restrain this disposition by a cherished selfish- 
ness. But there will be times when, in spite of all at- 
tempts to repress it, it will come forth in some kind deed 
or wot;d. So far as the great body of men and women 
and children are concerned, there is a disposition to 
oblige, to help a fellow-creature, if this can be done 
without injuring their own interests ; and, in the case 
of not a few, it is a benevolence which prompts to self- 
sacrifice and labors for the good of others. Besides the 
instincts which lead us to seek our own good, there are 
evidently others which incline us to find for our fellow- 
men the things which we regard as good for ourselves. 

III. There are the attachments to relatives, as of par- 
ents to children, and of children to parents, of brothers 
and siafers to one another, and, I may add, of grand- 
mothers and grandfathers to their grandchildren, and 

jUterJoi more distant kindred. In all such cases there is 
a natural appetency, and this is called forth by the idea of 
the person and of the relationship of that person. Take 
the case of a mother. There is a fountain within ready 
to flow out. It does not appear' till there is a child, 
though it seems to manifest itself at times in an irregu- 

1 As to the theory which draws them by evolution from pleasure and 
pain, see Section III. 



PEIMARY APPETENCES. 11 

lar manner in the attachment of a childless woman to 
animals or other pets, or in the craving for an adopted 
son or daughter. Let there be an idea of the relation in 
which the child stands to the mother, of the child being 
her offspring, and being dependent on her, and associated 
with her now and for life, and the stream begins to flow. 
It is the same with all other relative attachments, say 
paternal, filial, sisterly, or brotherly. First there is a pre- 
disposition, and then an idea of the intimate connection. 
Along with this there are frequently natural affinities, 
or common tastes and tendencies, which draw the related 
parties closer to each other. We have all read tales in 
which a mother is represented as recognizing her long- 
lost child, and a sister falling into the arms of a brother 
whom she never saw, simply on meeting. But there is 
no ground for making such a representation. The nat- 
ural likenesses in mind, body, and feature may predis- 
pose relatives towards one other; but, after all, there 
must be ground to lead to and justify the discovery. 
The affection thus called forth by the appetence and ap- 
prehension is made livelier and stronger by frequent in- 
tercourse, by exchanges of affection, by offices of kind- 
ness, by common ends and pursuits, and may be lessened, 
and in some instances all but destroyed, by clashing in- 
terests, — say, about money, — by quarrels, and eveivby 
long separations. The affection of friends is gendered 
in the first instance by affinities of tastes, dispositions, 
and motives, probably favored by circumstances, and is 
kept up by frequent association and mutual kindness. 

IV. The native tastes and talents, and our very ac- 
quired ones when they become part of our nature, prompt 
to action, and excite emotion when gratified or disap- 
pointed, and this independent of pleasure, or pain, or 
any other end. This seems true of our organic activity. 



12 FIRST ELEMENT: APPETENCES. 

The lamb frisks, the colt gambols, impelled by a life in 
their frames ; the child solves the problem of perpetual 
motion ; and all our lives, till the vital energy is dried 
up, and aged men and women are satisfied with their 
couch and their chimney-corner, we are impelled to 
movement and change of movement, owing to the or- 
gans of our frame demanding action. We see this strik- 
ingly in the musical talent, which often comes out in 
very early life. Our intellectual powers, our memory, 
our reasoning, all tend to act, and will act, unless re- 
strained. Talents, arithmetical, mathematical, mechan- 
ical, artistic, poetical, historical, metaphysical, fitted for 
the study of objects in nature, inanimate and animate, 
sun, moon, and stars, plant and animal, will all find a 
field to work in, even in the most unfavorable circum- 
stances. These may show themselves in childhood, and 
continue dominant throughout the whole life, determin- 
ing, it may be, in spite of difficulties, the man's trade or 
profession, and, indeed, his whole earthly destiny, and 
possibly prompting him, though engrossed with earthly 
business, to devote the few leisure hours he has to writ- 
ing a work on natural history, a poem, or a philosoph- 
ical treatise. Not only are there intellectual, there are 
emotional and, it may be added, moral powers, seeking 
out their appropriate objects, and making the possess- 
ors search for lovely landscapes or beautiful paintings, 
or leading them to visit the house of mourning, and 
relieve distress. All these, when gratified, stir up pleas- 
ing emotions, and when disappointed unpleasing. Inti- 
mately connected with these — 

V. There are the appetites, as of hunger, thirst, rest, 
of motion, or sex. They originate in the body, but they 
become mental. They crave for their objects, and this 
for their own sakes, not merely for the pleasure they 



PEIMAEY APPETENCES. 13 

give, or the pain from which their gratification delivers 
us. It is not the pleasure that gives rise to the appe- 
tite ; it is rather the action of the appetite that gives 
rise to the pleasure, — though doubtless the two move 
in the same direction, and each gives an impetus to the 
other. 

VI. There is the love of society. This propensity ap- 
pears among the lower animals, some tribes of which are 
gregarious. It comes forth in very early life among chil- 
dren, who draw towards others of about the same age. 
With some, as they advance in life, it becomes a strong 
and confirmed passion, so that they cannot live without 
the excitement produced by running round the circle of 
society, till they become giddy and fall. Solitude, ex- 
cept for a time to soothe the mind, is felt to be irksome 
by most people. Solitary confinement is one of the se- 
verest of punishments, and when carried out rigidly has 
been known to end in lunacy. It is to be observed that 
persons associate most pleasantly together when their 
trains of mental association run in the same direction, 
or parallel to each other. Hence it is that people of the 
same craft or profession, tradesmen, merchants, lawyers, 
doctors, preachers, students, teachers, are apt to meet 
with each other in larger or smaller companies. I have 
noticed that the most popular men and women in society 
are those whose trains of thought and of conversation, 
and whose opinions and sentiments, are in thorough ac- 
cordance with the circles in which they move. The best 
liked people are those whose whole manner and style of 
remark is a sort of flattery to those they meet. 

VII. There is a love of esteem, commendation, praise, 
glory, appearing also in early life, and capable of becom- 
ing a dominant passion. It is apt to associate itself with 
the motive last mentioned ; and the young delight in a 



14 FIRST ELEMENT: APPETENCES. 

smile, an approving word, or a gift from those whom they 
love, or with whom they associate, from father, mother, 
teacher, and sometimes stronger than any others, from 
companions. This principle, the desire to keep or retain 
the good opinion of others, often makes the tyranny ex- 
ercised over boys by their companions, in workshop, in 
school, and college, more formidable than any wielded by 
the harshest masters or rulers. As persons advance in 
life it becomes a desire to stand well with the circle in 
which they move, their professional circle, or the gay cir- 
cle, or the fashionable circle, or the respectable circle, or 
the good moral circle, or their religious circle, say, their 
congregation or the denomination of which they are mem- 
bers. The fear of losing the esteem or incurring the cen- 
sure of their social set or party is sometimes a means of 
sustaining good resolutions, and of keeping people in the 
straight course ; quite as frequently it tempts to coward- 
ice, as they have not the courage to do the right and op- 
pose the evil, since it would make them unpopular. In 
the case of many the desire becomes a craving for repu- 
tation, a passion for fame, burning and flaming, and it 
may be consuming the soul. This often leads to. great 
deeds in war and in peace, in the common arts and in 
the fine arts, in literature and science. But being ill 
regulated or carried to excess it is often soured into jeal- 
ousy, or envy, or issues in terrible disappointment. Be- 
ing thwarted, it may become a love of notoriety, which 
commonly springs up in the breasts of persons who, hav- 
ing met with opposition, or failed to secure from the good 
the applause which they expected, perhaps by honorable 
means, or having incurred odium, possibly undeserved, 
are bent on having reputation by any kind of means, or 
from any sort of people. The passion may become so 
strong as to need no aid from the pleasure derived from 



PKIMAEY APPETENCES. 15 

it, — nay, may lead the man to injure his health and in- 
cur suffering, in order to secure posthumous fame of 
which he can never be conscious. 

VIII. There is the love of power. It is conceivable 
that this motive might be generated by the love of pleas- 
ure and the aversion to pain, for in ordinary circum- 
stances power enables us to multiply our enjoyments and 
to avoid suffering. But then it appears in so marked a 
form in individuals and in families that we are forced to 
conclude that it is native ; we discover that it is often 
inherited from ancestors. It is the grasping of power 
combined with the thirst for fame which constitutes am- 
bition, the character of the ambition depending on the 
relative strength of the two elements : the former lead- 
ing to the performance of more brilliant feats, but the 
other leading to the more determined action, the two 
united producing the men whom the world calls great, 
but who have often been the servants, or rather the very 
slaves, of their passions. The love of dominion is the 
most unrelenting of all the passions by which man can 
be swayed, being the power which gives its strength and 
persistence to tyranny under all its forms. 

IX. There is the love of property, what is called 
acquisitiveness. This is often represented as springing 
from the love of power, always combined with the love 
of pleasure. Wealth gives us means of securing many 
kinds of enjoyment, and no doubt is commonly coveted 
because it is so associated in our minds. But there are 
cases in which the passion appears in very early life, and 
in which it is handed down from father to son, and runs 
in families. "We see it in an instinctive form in the 
lower animals, as when the dog hides his bones for future 
use. 

It is necessary, in order to make our enumeration of 



16 FIRST ELEMENT : APPETENCES. 

primary springs of action complete, to mention two 
others ; but it will not be necessary to dwell upon them, 
as they will fall to be noticed more appropriately else- 
where. 

X. There is the aesthetic sentiment, making us seek 
and delight in the beautiful, the picturesque, the humor- 
ous, and the sublime. 

XL There is the moral sentiment, prompting us to 
seek and to do what is good. 1 

From these leading forms as they mingle with each 
other and are influenced by circumstances, there proceed 
others, which are called : — 



SECTION III. 

SECONDARY APPETENCES. 

From the time of Hobbes of Malmesbury, in the mid- 
dle of the seventeenth century, there has been a ten- 
dency among metaphysicians to make the original inlets 
of knowledge as few as possible. Locke made them only 
two, sensation and reflection, and Condillac, with his fol- 
lowers in France, reduced them to one, sensation. For 
two centuries ingenuity strained itself to the utmost to 
derive all our ideas, even those of God and necessary 
truth and duty, from the two sources, or more frequently 
from one. I make this historical remark simply as in- 
troductory to another : that during the same period there 
was a like determination to diminish the original motive 
principles of the mind. Hobbes by a summary process 
referred all men's activities to motives drawn from pleas- 
ure and pain. During the last century and the beginning 

1 See Dngald Stewart's Desires, in Active and Moral Powers, vol. i. 
I treat of the ^Esthetic Emotions in book second, chap. ii. I hope to 
treat of the Conscience and Will in another little volume. 



SECONDARY APPETENCES. 17 

of this, wasted labor was spent in showing that, given 
only one or a very few springs of action, the whole of 
man's conduct can «be explained by the association of 
ideas. 

There has been a change in all that theorizing since 
Darwinism has become a power. All along thinkers not 
carried away by the dominant philosophy were slow to 
believe that there were no special intellectual powers, 
that there were no special propensities native to mankind 
generally, to races or individuals (Robert Burns doubted 
whether all sense of beauty could be explained by the as- 
sociation of ideas) ; for they thought they saw traces of 
these appearing at a very early age and going down in 
families. Since the doctrines of evolution and heredity 
have come into prominence, the current of opinion has en- 
tirely changed. Now the number of powers and propen- 
sities in human nature is supposed to have become so 
great by differentiation and specialization that it is im- 
possible to enumerate them and difficult to classify them. 
Having tried to give a provisionally good arrangement of 
the primary appetences, let us now look at the others. 

One general principle will be acknowledged by all: 
The secondary appetences imply primary, and grow upon 
them as the mistletoe does upon the oak. We can under- 
stand, in a general way, how this is effected. Undoubt- 
edly cerebral and nervous action are implied, but this is 
not the only nor the main power at work. Materialists 
talk confidently of being able to explain the whole of 
mental action by brain structure. But there is an im- 
passable gulf between a disposition of the cerebro-spinal 
mass and a desire of some kind, say, to attain a high 
ideal, or to reach communion with God. It is by mental 
rather than material laws that secondary affections are 
fashioned. Association of ideas plays an important part, 



18 FIRST ELEMENT: APPETENCES. 

which has been carefully unfolded by the Scottish school 
from the days of Turnbull and Hume down to the time 
of Mr. J. S. Mill. Money may be coveted, first, as pro- 
curing pleasure, and then, perhaps, by gratifying the de- 
sire for power or applause ; but by being associated with 
them it becomes identified with them, and carries all 
these with it, and in the end seems to be desired for its 
own sake. The processes are first mental, but they pro- 
duce an effect on the cerebral structure (what Carpenter 
calls unconscious cerebral affection), and the mind now 
works in accordance with it ; and the whole becomes 
hereditary, and may go down from father or mother, or 
quite as frequently in some of the peculiarities, from 
grandfather and grandmother to their grandchildren. 

It is a property of our nature, however we may ex- 
plain it, that these derived principles may become pri- 
mary, and seek, apparently for their own sake, objects 
which were at first desired, because they tended to pro- 
mote farther ends. We have all heard of persons cling- 
ing to their money after they were fully aware that they 
could draw no enjoyment from it, — say, when they knew 
they were dying. The ruling passion is often strong in 
death, and this passion may be a derivative one. 1 

The derivative appetences may and do assume an im- 
mense number and variety of forms, which run into and 
are mixed up with each other. Some are appropriately 
called secondary, being derived immediately from a pri- 
mary. Others might be called tertiary or quaternary, as 
they may be derived from principles of action which are 
themselves derived, very frequently from a number of prin- 
ciples, original and derivative, woven together in all sorts 
of ways, so that' it is difficult to unravel the web. From 

1 There is a well-authenticated story of a miser sending, before he died, 
for an undertaker, and cheating him in the bargain made for his funeral. 



SECONDARY APPETENCES. 19 

childhood up to full maturity (when the process is apt to 
cease), the actuating "principles are apt to become more 
numerous and special ; in declining life they become fewer 
and more centralized. A like process may be seen in the 
advance of mankind : in the primitive ages the aims and 
pursuits are limited ; as a people become more civilized 
they have more varied wants, and, by differentiation and 
specialization (acts so well known to biologists), the tastes 
become more diversified and minute. Among the more 
wide-spread appetences is the love of freedom, spurning 
at restraint, and feeling a buoyant enjoyment in walking 
at liberty ; it is one of the incentives which prompt a peo- 
ple to resist a tyrant and fight for independence. Older 
than this is the bowing to authority, learned in the fam- 
ily, and acknowledging the authority of a father, and 
learning allegiance and loyalty to a sovereign. There is 
the love of country, fed by common feelings and common 
interests, and which may and ought to lead us to be in- 
terested in all that relates to its welfare, and ready (Will 
has entered here) to undertake labor and sacrifice for its 
good. There is the taste for a particular work, a partic- 
ular profession, a special art, or a special science. Some 
are devoted to farming, with open field and fresh air; some 
to a trade which requires ingenuity, such as mechanics, 
building, or painting; some to sea-faring, with its advent- 
ures; some to merchandise, with its speculations. As 
the division of labor (which Adam Smith shows to be so 
intimately connected with the progress of a people) 
advances, there are generated corresponding aptitudes 
and employments. As mental activity is called forth, 
some devote their whole soul and life to the fine arts, 
or to literature, or to science. Good arises from this di- 
vision and subdivision of labor and taste. It is a happy 
thing for himself and for his race when a man's tastes 



20 FIEST ELEMENT: APPETENCES. 

are for his professional work ; but there is a danger that 
his soul becomes centred in it, so that he cannot be made 
to feel an interest in anything else. That man's mind is 
apt to become small as a pin point who is employed all 
his life in making a pin point. Even when his field of 
labor is richer, his mind is narrowed if it is confined ex- 
clusively to it, and does not look, around on other fields 
and upward to heaven. The physicist is apt to get a 
downward look by his bending forever towards the earth, 
while the metaphysician, in mounting up so far, but not 
far enough, is apt to lose himself in the clouds which are 
above the earth, but have not the clearness of the heav- 
ens. The specializing often gives great intensity of force, 
and advances a department of science and art ; but by 
looking forever through a microscope our eyes may be 
injured, our view of objects made very narrow, and the 
mind be without the means of judiciously generalizing. 
It is a great relief to a man, hard pressed by his profes- 
sional work or his studies, to have a side enjoyment, say, 
in miscellaneous reading, or in an easy, pleasant art, and 
in riding or walking, in shooting and fishing. The mind 
is possessed of qualities, often lying latent, which, if not 
restrained, will lead it to take the very deepest interest 
in particular, what may appear very minute, objects, — in 
a particular place, in a very special artifice or trick, in fa- 
vorite animals, or in favorite plants. 1 These tastes should 
be restrained only so far as to keep us from being ab- 
sorbed with them, and thereby being tempted into eccen- 
tricity and caprices. As men make progress in intelli- 
gence, they will thereby become conformed to a common 
standard ; but they should take care, meanwhile, not to 
lose their individuality, which is a powerful support of 

1 I knew a man who had an intense love for toads, which he kept care- 
fully in his garden and summer houses. 



EVOLUTION OF EMOTIONS. 21 

their independence. By all means let us have wide- 
spread and fertile plains, but let us not pare down our 
hills and mountains, to which we may retreat for free 
and fresher air. 

SECTION IV. 

Supplementary. 

EVOLUTION OF EMOTIONS. 

The supporters of the evolution hypothesis will not be 
satisfied with the account given above. They tell us 
that the only original motive of the mind is a desire of 
happiness and an aversion to pain. From this they draw 
all the others, even those usually supposed to be primary. 
Society is felt first to be pleasant, and then is sought for 
its own sake. It is the same with the love of property 
and the love of power. Attempts were made an age or 
two ago to show how this process might be accomplished 
in the breast of the individual during the few years of 
the formation of- his character. This theory has been 
abandoned. It is now argued that the motives by which 
mankind are swayed are the growth of many and long 
ages, have come down from animal to man, and go down 
from one generation of man to another. 

There are difficulties in the way of the acceptance of 
this hypothesis. It supposes that man is descended from 
the brutes, in the end from an ascidian, or a cell, or an 
aggregate of molecules. It may be safely said that no 
one has been able to show how that is done. The gap 
between the inanimate and the animate has not yet been 
filled up. No bridge has yet been found to connect ex- 
tended matter with sensitive and intelligent mind. Com- 
ing to the springs of action, it has not been shown how 
a love of pleasure for ourselves can become a love for 
pleasure to others, or how sensations can generate a per- 



22 FIRST ELEMENT: APPETENCES. 

ception of duty. If this can be done, it must be by a 
very peculiar and remarkable process, which for the ends 
of science will require to be enunciated, and its exact 
nature, laws, and limits specified. Being generated, it is 
supposed to become hereditary. But while we know 
that there is such a process as heredity, its evident com- 
plexity has not been unraveled, nor its precise potencies 
enunciated. Heredity is essentially an organic, that is, a 
bodily, process, and it has not been shown how the trans- 
mission of a bodily organization should produce a mental 
appetency. 

With these doubts hanging over the nature and limits 
of evolution and heredity, I have thought it wise not to 
connect my exposition of human motives with the de- 
velopment hypothesis. Should that doctrine come to be 
established and be successfully applied to the generation 
of human motives, it might throw light on the origin of 
human appetences, but would scarcely affect our account 
of the appetences themselves. Assuming the one original 
appetence of pleasure and pain, the hypothesis would 
have to show how all the derivative ones, such as the 
social and moral ones, take their particular shapes. I 
wish it to be distinctly understood that in this treatise I 
undertake not to determine the origin of motives in the 
ages past and among the lower animals ; I am satisfied if 
I give an approximately correct account of them as they 
now act in the human mind. In all inquiry into the 
origin of things, when we have not historical proof, we 
must commence with ascertaining the nature of the ob- 
jects themselves, and then we may seek to devise an 
hypothesis which will explain all the facts. If a true ex- 
position is given in this treatise of the springs of action 
actually working, it will enable inquirers to determine 
as to any proposed hypothesis, say, that of evolution, 



KELATION OF SECONDARY TO PRIMARY. 23 

whether it meets all the phenomena. For myself, if ever 
I enter into this controversy, it will be in a separate work, 
so as not to distract the view presented in this treatise of 
man as he is. 

SECTION V. 

Supplementary. 

DO THE DERIVATIVE APPETENCES BEAR A CONSCIOUS REFERENCE 
TO THE ORIGINAL ONES ?" 

A very nice and difficult question is here started. 
Does the mind, in following a derived impulse, have any 
reference to those from which it is derived ? The second- 
ary one, let us suppose, is the love of money, derived from 
the primary one, the love of pleasure. In grasping the 
coin does the man think merely of the money, or is there 
some idea — it may be very vague — of the enjoyment 
expected to be derived from it ? Or, to put the question 
in a more general form, has the money come to be loved 
for its own sake, or for the pleasure which has come to 
be associated with it ? 

It is commonly stated in books on this subject that 
the secondary spring of action becomes a- primary one. 
It certainly does look at first sight as if the object, say 
the food, or the fame, is seized for its own sake.' If so, it 
must be by some principle into whose nature we should 
inquire, and which we should seek to enunciate. When 
does a secondary rise to the rank of a primary motive ? 
I believe an answer to this question might settle the 
general one. 

But is it necessary to call in a new principle ? Might 
it not all be accounted for by the principle of associa- 
tion, acting till the product becomes organic and hered- 
itary ? Let us suppose that, actuated by the love of pleas- 
ure, the man finds that wealth is the means of imparting 



24 FIRST ELEMENT: APPETENCES. 

and increasing enjoyment. Henceforth enjoyment is as- 
sociated with wealth, and the wealth is coveted because 
of the felicity. Money bringing enjoyment is the idea 
that stirs up the desire. It is not necessary to suppose 
that we are distinctly conscious. of the contemplated en- 
joyment entering into the act. The object, say the 
wealth, may bulk so largely in our view that the other 
element is not specially noticed. The man may not de- 
liberately choose the pleasure ; on the contrary, if there 
were time and disposition to think, it might be seen that 
the object, say ill-gotten wealth, is sure to land us in 
misery ; but the object has associated itself with a pri- 
mary impulse, and draws him on if some other motive 
does not oppose. 

There is a circumstance that imparts force to this lat- 
ter view. We find that when the secondary appetence 
ceases to gratify the primary one, it is apt to be weak- 
ened, and may in the end all but disappear, or appear 
only as the result of an old habit. It is thus that so 
many become disgusted with the objects which once they 
desired so eagerly. The woman formerly loved is found, 
or imagined to be, unworthy, mean, selfish, or corrupt, 
may have ceased to afford the pleasure she at one time 
did, or has wounded the vanity or thwarted some of the 
favorite ends of her lover, and is henceforth avoided or 
repelled. In this way all persons with correct moral 
principle, or indeed with good sense, become wearied 
with sensual indulgences, which are associated with re- 
morse and filth. Fame and property may become bur- 
densome, because of the cares and anxieties which they 
bring. 

Whichever of these theories we adopt, it must ever be 
admitted that there are in the breasts of every individ- 
ual natural appetences ; these not merely the love of 



MOTIVES. • 25 

happiness, which, is acknowledged to be universal, but 
various social instincts and sympathies. These tend to 
act, in spite of the most adverse circumstances, and show 
themselves in disappointed feelings when the means of 
gratification are denied. In conducting this discussion, 
we have come to discover a most important practical 
principle ; this is the most effective way of removing or 
counteracting an evil appetence, or one we wish to be rid 
of. Let ns gather a set of associations round another ob- 
ject of an opposite tendency. Let us cure a low ambi- 
tion by cultivating a high one ; and this may be done by 
connecting it in our thoughts with some primary appe- 
tence of a high character, such as the love of good to our- 
selves or others. Lust is best corrected by cherishing a 
pure love. Idleness or listlessness may be overcome by 
determining to pursue a noble end. As we do so, our as- 
sociations will cluster round the object, to which we will 
be drawn by all the force of a primary affection. 

SECTION VI. 

MOTIVES. 

In whatever way we may classify them or account for 
their origin, the appetences are the motives which stir up 
desire and lead to action. It is a hindrance in the way 
of constructing a science of the mind that we have no 
standard of measurement and no instruments, as they 
have in physics (such as the barometer and thermom- 
eter), for determining the force of the swaying powers 
of the mind. Provided we had such a test, we might be 
able to express definitely the respective relative strength 
of the motives, and the result, when they combine with 
and oppose each other. Without such measuring instru- 
ment, all we can do is to observe and estimate in a gen- 



26 FIRST ELEMENT : APPETENCES. 

era! way the tendencies and paths of the appetences, and 
notice how they act with and against each other. In do- 
ing so psychical has a counterbalancing advantage over 
physical science, as all the facts are within the mind and 
immediately under the eye of consciousness. 

It has often been said that if we had sufficient intel- 
lectual ability and. knew all the forces of nature we 
might predict the course of things through all futurity. 
It may be declared, in like manner, that if Ave were 
thoroughly conversant with the original springs of action 
in every man, and of the circumstances in which he is 
placed, we might foretell his coming career, barring any 
question that may spring from the freedom of the wilL 1 
If we knew all the motives (as God doubtless knows 
them) acting at every given time, we might account for 
the most capricious conduct of men and women, even as 
we can explain the movements of the wandering meteors 
and eccentric comets. 

But in fact the problem is far too complicated for 
human sagacity to solve. The " problem of the three 
bodies" is a very simple one compared with it; it is the 
problem of a thousand bodies, crossing and recrossing, 
some of them very close to, and crowding and jostling 
each other. The considerations come in at all sorts of an- 
gles to help or hinder each other, and to produce all man- 
ner of paths, straight or curved or crooked. The course 
of every man and his place at any given moment are de- 
termined by attractions and repulsions, now drawing this 
way and now drawing that way, acting with and against 
each other in an indefinite and indefinable variety of 
ways. But to ascertain and measure these would re- 
quire a higher calculus than quaternions or qualities, or 
the latest discovered mathematical instruments. The 
path of some, and these often the most influential, men 



DIFFEKENCES OF APPETENCES IN INDIVIDUALS. 27 

is determined by one or a few strong passions acting in 
very varied circumstances, such as the love of power or 
of fame, which carry them along in an onward progress, 
in which they move through opposition as the vessel does 
through the waves. That of others is settled by a vast 
variety of influences, balancing each other, but held in by 
outward circumstances and by prudence, and is like that 
of a planet, regular and orderly. That of a third class is 
more like that of a comet, attracted, indeed, towards a 
centre, but driven away into remote distances. It ought 
not to be forgotten that man has after all a power to 
choose among competitors and complainants by the will 
— the rudder which after all guides the course of ( the 
vessel, even when it is impelled by sails or by oars, in- 
clining now to the one side and now to the other. 



SECTION" VII. 

DIFFERENCES OF APPETENCES IN DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS. 

Some of these, such as the love of happiness and t 
reverse, operate in the hearts of all men ; others, sucl 
the love of polite society and refinement, are confine 
a few. There are persons who are incapable of 
moved by ends which powerfully attract others 
their worldly substance so engrosses some that tr 
not understand how any one should set a high 
knowledge ; while with others the thirst for 
overpowers the love of gold and every other 
position. Some inclinations seem to be perse ■ 
culiar to the individual, as you see in that 
dency to solitary musing not known amor 
kindred. Others are hereditary, and run .t 

may be penuriousness, or vanity, or the ,e- 

ment or of strong drink ; or are charae jes, 



28 FIRST ELEMENT : APPETENCES. 

as the love of war or of conquest. Some are strong in 
youth, and become weaker in old age, as the appetites 
and the amorous affections with all their concomitants, 
and very often also the love of gayety and small ambi- 
tions. Some are apt to be strong in the female charac- 
ter, such as the love of dress and of admiration, and sym- 
pathy with joy and sorrow ; others are, usually, stronger 
in the male sex, as pride, courage, and the love of advent- 
ure and speculation. Some of the motives are fixed, 
like a stationary engine drawing up freighted carriages 
day and night, such as the love of power, and ambition 
generally ; others, as the love of excitement and amuse- 
ments, move on with circumstances, like the locomotive 
advancing with its accompanying train. 

In commonplace minds, indeed with a large body of 
mankind, the main motives are simply the desire to se- 
cure the ordinary gratification and avoid the common 
annoyances of life, along with the gratification of the ap- 
petites and some domestic affections. They eat, they 
drink, they sleep ; they do their necessary business ; they 
lay hold of the easily available enjoyments of society, 
and avoid, more or less carefully, the pains inflicted by 
natural laws ; and they thus pass through life doing lit- 
tle evil and no good. Still, even in the breasts of such, 
there will, at times, be deeper impulses making them- 
selves felt, as a fit of passion, sorrow for the loss of a 
friend, a generous affection, a high aspiration, a reproach 
of conscience, an awe from a supernatural power, — 
showing that man has the remains of a higher nature in 
him, but kept under by the lower appetences, as seeds 
are by the snows and frosts of winter. It is the office 
of religion, like the returning spring, to melt the ice and 
awaken the seeds into life, and nourish them aright. 

In some the passions are few and weak. In these 



DIFFERENCES OF APPETENCES IN INDIVIDUALS. 29 

cases the temperament is apt to be dull, and the char- 
acter feeble, though it is possible that there may be much 
good sense and solid judgment, not liable to aberrations 
from prejudice. These people act wisely, but are not 
able to give impulse to others. Most men and women 
are under a number of motives, no one of them being 
very strong. The result is a mediocre character, which 
may be good or evil, as it is directed. In some the 
moving powers are so balanced that an equilibrium is 
established, and you feel confident that the man will be 
guilty of no extravagance or absurdity ; and this not 
because of any moral quality, but simply because of an 
equipoise of instincts. Some are moved by a few strong 
passions, such as self-sufficiency, self-righteousness, pride, 
and hold their place in society. Others are moved by 
benevolence, with its fountains and streams of tender- 
ness and alms-giving, and by generous impulses of vari- 
ous kinds, and they spread a happy influence in society. 
Some are under the dominion of a few petty partialities 
with enmities and friendships, and the result is an eccen- 
tric character, with whims, oddities, foibles, and caprices. 
Others are impelled by a number of strong tendencies 
the passions are vehement, and there are attachment 
sympathies, lusts, spites, hatreds, revenges, all act 
with or contrary to each other. Such a combina 
when the capacities are weak, produces a weak an 
illating character; but if the intellectual talents b' 
a strong character for good or for evil, for frien 
enmity, for defense or attack, for building or fo 
ing, for elevating or for disturbing a commu 
the man himself lives in a region of storm 
plains of the opposition he is ever meeting 5 

are a few of the forms which natural chara 



30 FIRST ELEMENT : APPETENCES. 

SECTION VIII. 

CONSPIRING APPETENCES. 

Sometimes the cords all draw in one and the same di- 
rection. The man is healthy ; he has all the comforts of 
life ; his business is prosperous ; his family are united ; he 
is respected in the community ; he is not troubled with 
ambitious aims; and he feels happy, — why should he 
not? There are times when prodigious violence is the 
result of a confluence of winds and waves. Henry VIII. 
so determinedly persevered in his purpose of procuring a 
divorce, because wearied of his bigoted wife, in doubt as 
to the lawfulness of his marriage, and in love with Anne 
Boleyn. A man fleeing for his life, with death in pur- 
suit, will bound over a stream into which in less stimu- 
lating circumstances he would fall and perish. I have 
known students, at a competitive examination, by a gath- 
ering and. concentration of force doing as much intel- 
lectual work in a few hours as they could have done in 
as many days without the combined stimulus of fame, 
rivalry, and expected profit. From like combined causes 
have proceeded, on great emergencies, bursts of extem- 
poraneous eloquence, as that of Abraham Lincoln at 
Gettysburg, such as could not have been produced by the 
most labored preparation. It is not that the grand result 
in such cases is the product of the moment ; there is a 
concentration of powers which have long been collecting, 
a long gathering of the winds now bursting out in the 
hurricane, a deposition, for years which now falls on the 
instant in the avalanche. It was thus that the love of in- 
tellectual employment, of fame, and power, and a desire 
to promote the glory of their country, all allured on an 
Alexander, a Csesar, a Napoleon, to brilliant feats of con- 



CONFLICTING APPETENCES. 31 

quest. After a like manner, the man of a devout nature, 
like Mohammed and Cromwell, is carried along as by a 
trade-wind ; the power is within, but he feels as if it 
were something without him and above him, and calls it 
the inspiration of the Almighty. Or, under very differ- 
ent impulses, finding that a long-coveted honor is denied 
him, and roused into ungovernable rage, he curses as bit- 
terly as Shimei did and may threaten blows or murder. 
Or, after long dreaming of some expected elysium, he 
"wakes, and finds his only hope lost." Or the conscience 
is roused from its lethargy by an unexpected calamity, 
and brings vividly before him divers aspects of one sin 
after another, or of that one sin which haunts him like 
a ghost, and a hell is created before the time, and he 
feels as if torn by furies gnawing at his vitals. 

SECTION IX. 

CONFLICTING APPETENCES. 

We have just seen that the motives may join their 
streams and give great impetus and momentum to the 
action. In other cases they cross each other, and this in 
all sorts of ways. Sometimes they directly oppose and 
thus arrest each other. Sometimes they clash, and pro- 
duce distractions. So the issue may be inaction, or ib 
may be a compromise, or it may be a terrible fight. 

Passions may contend in two ways. First there may 
be the operation at one and the same time of two incon- 
sistent propensities : there may be, on the one hand, am- 
bition or a love of money prompting to action, and on 
the other a love of ease and of immediate pleasure, in- 
clining to repose ; or there may be a sense of duty re- 
sisting a desire to please or a lust for sensual gratification. 
Were the two equally balanced, they might counteract 



32 FIRST ELEMENT : APPETENCES. 

each other, and inaction be the statical result. 1 We see 
this in so many -who would like to gain a certain end but 
are hindered by a fear of difficulties or by conscience, 
and who have to content themselves with doing nothing, 
except perhaps cherishing sullenness, or who become dis- 
tracted by reason of the striving of winds and waves, 
there being all the while no onward movement. 

But more frequently both passions act. On the prin- 
ciple of the parallelogram of the forces, the man follows 
an intermediate course. This is apt to be the case with 
your prudent man, who takes as much of pleasure as he 
can have without injuring his health or reputation. Or, 
the man gives in now to one motive, and now to another, 
and he goes by fits and starts, or is known as a man of 
shifts and expedients. When the motives are not strong, 
his conduct is tremulous, like ihe sea when rippled by the 
breezes. When they are more powerful, the character 
seems eccentric or untrustworthy, or inconsistent to the 
world. " He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea." 
" A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." 
We feel that we cannot confide in him, for the motives 
which swayed him to-day do not influence him to-mor- 
row. His course is a zigzag one, perhaps an interrupted 
one, and regarded by all as a contradictory one. In 
most cases the forces are not equal, and the path pursued 
is curved, perhaps crooked. Sometimes a number of af- 
fections are in activity at one and the same time, pro- 
ducing an orbit more difficult to determine than that of 
the solar system among the stars. The result is apt to 
be a constant variation, or an unstable equilibrium se- 

1 " Did you ever see a blacksmith shoe a restless horse 1 If you have, 
you have seen him take a small cord and tie the upper lip. Ask him what 
he docs it for, he will tell you it gives the beast something to think about." 
Wendell Phillips's Speeches and Lectures. 



CONFLICTING APPETENCES. 33 

cured by multiplied balancings ever liable to be de- 
ranged. 

Or, secondly, the conflict may arise from the regurgita- 
tions of one and the same appetence, as now the stream 
flows on and is gratified, and again is beat back by cir- 
cumstances, as by a rock, and is disappointed. The af- 
fection is the same, but the circumstances and the idea 
differ, as now there is the appetible to attract, but forth- 
with the inappetible to repel. Thus love may lead the 
man to dote on the person loved, or be jealous of her ; 
now it looks as if he were ready to lay down his life for 
her, and anon as if he were resolved to take away her 
life, according as he regards her as returning his affec- 
tion or favoring a rival. 

The conflicts may be keen and long continued be- 
tween the flesh and the spirit, between passion and pru- 
dence, between the love of earthly enjoyment and the 
attainment of a high ideal. Often do these conflicting 
passions produce a fearful agitation, like that of the Bay 
of Biscay, by the meeting of several tides or currents. 
The source and the power are deep down in the heart, 
but they appear on the surface in lashings, crestings, and 
foam. The person feels his state to be intolerable, but 
cannot stay it. We see it strikingly exhibited in times 
of suspense, in which, let it be observed, while there is 
a suspense of the judgment, there is no suspense of the 
appetences. A critical event is at hand, which is to de- 
termine for good or for evil our destiny for life. An 
office for which we are a candidate is to be settled, or an 
important offer has been made, which has to be accepted 
or rejected. What elevations and depressions, what 
hopes and fears, as the person looks now at the one 
side, and now at the other, and as chances seem favor- 
able or unfavorable ! If in the mean time steps have to 

3 



34 FIRST ELEMENT: APPETENCES. 

be taken to secure the issue, the exertion may so brace 
the frame as to keep it from brooding on the results. 
But if the person has simply to wait, then what alterna- 
tions of heights and hollows ! What agony on the part 
of the prisoner when the jury has retired and has not 
returned to announce the verdict ! What tumultuous 
waves move through the bosom of the mother, as she sits 
watching by the sick-bed of her child through that dismal 
night which she knows to be the crisis of the fever. Or 
information reaches her that the vessel in which she 
knows her son was has been shipwrecked ; she is so 
situated that weeks must elapse before she can learn 
whether he was actually drowned. And what weeks ! 
How long they are ! And what terrible tremors by day 
and visions at night ! the very hopes which she momen- 
tarily cherishes revealing, what the lightning flash does, 
only the circumambient darkness. What ups and downs, 
what exaltations and sinkings of heart, as the lover 
waits for the answer to his proposal. Some have felt 
the anxiety to be so intense that they wish for the an- 
swer to come, even though it should be adverse, rather 
than continue longer in this state of crucifying apprehen- 
sion. 

In many cases the combination is chemical rather than 
mechanical, and there is a boiling and a fermentation. 
A mother hears of her son being slain on the field of 
battle, fighting bravely for his country, and having only 
time, ere he expired, to send one message, and that of 
undying love to her. There is necessarily a terrible out- 
burst of grief, as she thinks how he died, far away from 
her, with none to stanch his wounds, and that she will 
never see him again in this world. But then that son 
was generous and brave, and he remembered me in his 
last conscious moments, and I would rather be the 



DOMINANT APPETENCES. 35 

mother of that son than of a king or an emperor. But 
all this only intensifies her sorrow, when she reflects that 
this son is now torn from her. In all such cases each 
natural feeling works its proper effect in so far reliev- 
ing, or it may be intensifying, those combined with it. 
What a horror of thick darkness, when the mother has 
to brood over the grave of a son who died in a fit of 
drunkenness ! 

SECTION X. 

DOMINANT APPETENCES. 

There are some in whom there are a few dominant 
passions ; some in whom there is only one, — the love of 
the miser for his gold, of the ambitious man for power, 
of a lover for his mistress, of a mother for her children. 
To this last class may be referred the man of one idea, 
that is, of a favorite project, which may make him a 
somewhat troublesome member of society ; but if the 
idea be good, may so concentrate his thoughts and in- 
tensify his energies, which others waste, as to enable 
him to accomplish an important end. In cases where 
the intellect is weak and the views narrow, you have 
the angular man, the man of crotchets and hobbies. The 
primary appetence genders others, which feed and sup- 
port it. The one passion becomes the centre round 
which other agencies circulate, — associated ideas, plans 
and projects, private and public interests with daily ac- 
tivities, — as planets do round the sun, and satellites 
round the planets. It may come to be the impelling and 
the guiding power of the whole life, of the affections 
which cherish it, and of the actions which are the execu- 
tion of it. The product is commonly an energetic charac- 
ter, which pursues a path of its own, and moves along 
like a steam-engine upon the rails set for it, with irresist- 



36 FIRST ELEMENT: APPETENCES. 

ible power and great speed. Weaker natures have to 
bend before it, as trees do before the tempest. Men thus 
moved and moving often come to have sway over their 
districts, over their states, over continents, and over ages 
to come. It has to be added that they often meet with 
opposition from men as determined as themselves, and fire 
is struck by the collision, and they have to rattle on over 
flinty rocks ; or they are arrested in their course, and per- 
haps are burned as martyrs. Which of these issues is to 
follow may depend on their intellectual force, or on the 
preparedness of the age to receive them. 

The ruling passion differs, of course, in different indi- 
viduals. In some cases it leads to deeds of self-sacrifice 
and devotion which may be regarded as sublime, as 
when Horatius of old kept the bridge, and Leonidas 
withstood the Persians at Thermopylae ; as when the 
mother hesitates not to risk her life in defense of her 
child, and the sister nurses a brother in a raging fever 
breathing infection all around, and the martyr dies for 
the faith. In many cases it is partly for good and partly 
for evil, as the love of fame when it leads to dashing 
feats, but may be accompanied with sour jealousy and 
biting envy, which attacks reputations and disturbs the 
peace of the community. When the actor is of weak 
capacity, he is driven along by his passion, as the ship 
with full-spread sail, but without ballast, or rudder, or 
compass, is by the winds and waves. When the motive 
is totally self-regarding, as it is in the case of the miserly, 
the ambitious, the intemperate, the licentious, it burns 
within like a fire, absorbing all things into itself, even the 
powers that oppose it, and devouring them in its flame, 
which may spread all around and become the bane of 
the community. When it is thwarted, as it is constantly 
liable to be, very possibly by the very obstacles it has 



UNDEVELOPED APPETENCES. 37 

raised up, its agitations become as noisy and restless as 
those of the ocean upon an opposing precipice. When 
it is totally and finally disappointed, as it must often be, 
then the bearer and the cherisher of it, Napoleon Bona- 
parte for instance, at St. Helena, is like an imprisoned 
vulture nibbling restlessly at its cage. 

In all cases the heavy weight is apt to disturb the equi- 
librium of the soul, which becomes misshapen and would 
be the better of being balanced by some other affections. 
It fortunately happens that certain minor tastes and 
kindly dispositions often come in to soften the hardness 
and selfishness of the character. Macaulay, absorbed in 
literature, was willing at any time to turn aside from 
it to write for the amusement of the relatives he loved. 
What a relief to the business man to unbosom himself in 
the evening in his family, who may regale him with pleas- 
ant games, or reading, or music ! The fanatic Robes- 
pierre had a redeeming feature in his love for his dog and 
for the lower animals. I knew the mother of an illegiti- 
mate child, who, for fear of exposure, murdered her infant, 
but labored through long, wearisome days to support her 
mother. Tradition reports that Robin Hood and Rob 
Roy gave large portions of their plunder to the poor. ' 



SECTION XI. 

UNDEVELOPED APPETENCES. 

We have seen that there are native tendencies to ac- 
tion in all men. All of these do not have an outlet at 
every given time ; some of them may never find a chan- 
nel. In the breast of every child there is a whole host 
of such appetences, ready to come forth like buds in 
spring. The constant activity of youth arises partly 
from organic life, but it is excited mainly by the mental 



38 FIRST ELEMENT : APPETENCES. 

cravings. It is said that there is as much energy laid up 
in a dew-drop as would make a thunder-storm; there is 
certainly power in the breast of that infant sufficient to 
produce immortal results. There is force pressing in all 
directions, laid up and ready to burst out when an open- 
ing is made. The appetences are the varied sources of 
the life of youth ; as the rain which has fallen into the 
ground, and runs there in gathered rills, is the feeder of 
our fountains. The expression of the desires of the young 
is, " Who will show us any good? " and they are grateful 
to any one who will give them employment in accordance 
with their longings ; and you see them running to every 
pretentious spectacle, and dancing round the blaze of 
crackling thorns. If a lawful means of expending their 
energy is not allowed, it will break out in lawless ways ; 
making it so important to keep youth busy, if we would 
keep them out of evil. 

Some boys and girls do not show a particular ten- 
dency towards any one kind of activity, but seem ready 
for any kind of work. Others early begin to run along 
certain marked lines : towards their father's occupation, 
or towards merchandise, or towards books ; towards mu- 
sic, or painting, or mechanics, or travel, or science, or 
philosophy, or practical beneficence. Sometimes it is a 
long time, and only after repeated failures in roads on 
which he has entered, that the young man falls in with or 
finds his appropriate sphere and work. One who expected 
to be a scholar has to go to business ; and one, like Hugh 
Miller, who has tried a trade rises to be a man of sci- 
ence. I felt myself, and I believe others have felt, in the 
state between youth and manhood, an indefinable longing, 
coming out like the sighing of a stream in the quiet of 
the evening, and asking for a settled work in the morn- 
ing. It is the unuttered prayer of a spirit, which has 



UNDEVELOPED APPETENCES. 39 

unused capacities, craving for an object and for employ- 
ment. 

When they are not allowed to come out, the appe- 
tences smoulder like a suppressed fire. There may be 
such in the breasts of persons advanced in life. The 
virgin may never meet with one to whom she chooses to 
unite herself, but she has all the sensibilities which 
would make her happy with one she loved. There is an 
affection in the mother, ready to clasp her infant as 
soon as it is born. Many a boy has fine impulses which 
his teacher has not the skill to call forth. There are 
men and women who have capacities for friendships and 
benevolences which they have restrained from timidity or 
from selfishness, and which, therefore, have become gradu- 
ally dried up. We must all have met with middle-aged 
or old men, possessed of great talents and wide aspira- 
tions, but who have never found their proper field to work 
in, and who feel unhappy in consequence, as they expend 
their strength on insignificant objects. They remind me 
of Napoleon in Elba, devoting the intellect which used to 
combine armies to small farming operations. At times 
a conjuncture will call forth a capacity which has hitherto 
lain dormant, as the seed which had been in the mummy 
for thousands of years will burst forth in open air and a 
congenial soil. Thus, the death of a father has called 
forth energies of a hitherto inactive son, and the death 
of the husband has revealed hitherto unknown capaci- 
ties of exertion and management in his widow. 

Any one looking into the mind of a child may discover 
capabilities there which are to fit it for a sphere in this 
world. But may we not discover in the soul endow- 
ments and aspirations, which do not find their fitting 
action in this, but seem to be intended for another and 
a higher sphere ? How many cuttings are trained in a 



40 FIRST ELEMENT : APPETENCES. 

nursery here, only to be torn up, but in such a way and 
with such gifts as to show that they are to be trans- 
planted into a better soil. There are longings in man 
which can be satisfied with nothing less than with God. 



SECTION xn. 

THE MOTIVELESS MAN. 

The phrase might be applied to those who have no 
very strong appetences of any kind. They may have 
good intellectual abilities ; when a work is forced upon 
them by circumstances, they may do it thoroughly and 
effectively ; and from the very fact that they have no 
predilections, the} 7 may pass a very sound judgment on 
a case submitted to them. But their temperament, it is 
said, is sluggish, and they undertake no great work. 

But the phrase seems rather to be applicable to one 
who has lost a motive which he at one time had. A wife 
(I have known many such) has tried for a long time to 
win back the affection of a husband, or to save him from 
intemperance. But all her efforts have failed, and when 
she comes to the conclusion that they must fail for the 
future she ceases to exert herself. Her whole character 
and manner are now marked by listlessness. She feels 
that it is vain to try to please, and her person and her 
household come to be neglected. The only means of 
saving her is to furnish to her a ground of hope by the 
reformation of her husband, or, we have to add, by his 
death. Much the same state of feeling is apt to be 
superinduced when one who has long toiled at business 
finds in old age that his plans have utterly broken down. 
He feels that there is nothing left him but to give him- 
self to apathy, from which there is no means of rousing 
him. Happy, surely, are those who in such a position 
have motive and hope to start for a better world ! 



THE MOTIVELESS MAN. 41 

The most painful cases are those in which the man 
has lost motive of every kind. He has failed, or he im- 
agines that he has failed, in so many things that his 
habitual sentiment is that nothing will succeed with him. 
It is of no use laying any proposed line of action before 
him ; he will scarcely listen to it, or, if he does so for a 
moment, it is only to sink back into indifference. But 
meanwhile he is not in the negative and blank position 
of one who is utterly devoid of incentives. For there 
may be ambitious inclinations lying within, in a smoul- 
dering state, which he keeps down simply because he 
feels that they cannot be gratified, and which have a 
suffocating effect upon him. With fine capacities of 
thought and action, he may give himself up to a life of 
useless lassitude. Or, making one other ecstatic effort 
issuing in failure, he may abandon himself to despair, or 
terminate an intolerable existence by suicide. 



CHAPTER II. 

SECOND ELEMENT: THE IDEA (PHANTASM). 
SECTION I. 

NATURE OF THE IDEA WHICH CALLS FOKTH EMOTION. 

It is of an object fitted to gratify or to disappoint an 
appetence of the mind. The mere existence of the ap- 
petence as a tendency or disposition is not sufficient to 
call forth feeling, though I have no doubt it is ever 
prompting it, or rather by the law of association stirring 
up the idea which gives it a body. There must always 
be an idea carrying out the appetence to call the emo- 
tion into actual exercise. If the object be before us, 
of course we have a perception of it by the senses or 
we are conscious of it within our minds. If it be not 
present we have a remembrance of it, or we have formed 
an imagination of it. That object may be mental or 
material, may be real or imaginary, may be in the past, 
the present, or the future ; but there must always be a 
representation of it in the mind. Let a man stop him- 
self at the time when passion is rolling like a river, he 
will find that the idea is the channel in which it flows. 
An idea is as much needed as a pipe is to conduct gas 
and enable it to flame ; shut up the conduit and the feel- 
ing will be extinguished. 

Other things being equal, the emotion rises and falls 
according as the idea takes in more or less of the appet- 
ible. I am told that a dear relative of mine has fallen 



NATURE OF IDEA WHICH CALLS FORTH EMOTION. 43 

from a great height and is dangerously injured. I have 
a vivid image of that friend as in deep distress, and I am 
affected with sorrow and with pity. But I am told soon 
after that the account brought me is so far mistaken : a 
person had fallen, but he is no friend of mine, and the 
peculiar tenderness of my feeling is removed. On mak- 
ing further inquiry, I find that though he fell from a 
height he is not seriously hurt, and my pity ceases. Ex- 
amine any other case of emotion and you will always 
discover an idea as the substratum of the whole, bearing 
it up as the stake does the living vine. I have come to 
see that a favorite and long-cherished project of mine 
may possibly succeed, and I have a faint hope. As 
events move on, I find that it will probably succeed, and 
my hope, thus supplied with fuel, kindles into a flame. 
After a time it becomes certain that I will attain my end, 
and I have now a settled expectation. My scheme is at 
last crowned with success, and I have joy. But the 
crown of green branches placed on my brow begins to 
wither, I am exposed to blighting cares, envy, and 
trouble, and there remains nothing but the dead stock 
of disappointment. Emotion has thus as its body an 
idea, which determines the life and growth, the decay 
and death, of the inner spirit. 

The idea which thus awakens feeling is not an ab- 
stract or general notion. Pity is called forth by the con- 
templation, not of humanity in the abstract, but of sen- 
tient beings, ourselves or others, exposed to suffering. 
The dread which moves us is not of evil in general, but of 
some individual evil or evils, such as pain, bereavement, 
ill usage, insult, contempt, contumely ; emotion is excited 
when we have an idea of ourselves or others exposed to 
these or such as these. The mental state is best ex- 
pressed by an apt Aristotelian phrase which some of us 



44 SECOND ELEMENT: THE IDEA. 

are seeking to revive, phantasm, 1 the faculty from which 
it proceeds being the phantasy. The phantasy presents 
a picture of ourselves or others, of a man, woman, or 
child in sorrow, and our commiseration flows forth apace, 
all this because we have a fountain within, which how- 
ever needs an outlet. 

The phantasm must be of an object which addresses 
the appetence in the way of gratifying or disappoint- 
ing it. It must appeal to our desire for pleasure or ap- 
plause, to our friendship, or to some one or other of the 
motives which draw mankind. There are some springs 
of action which seem to sway all men, such as the love 
of happiness and the desire to please. There are others 
which are confined to classes or individuals, as the love 
of money, the love of dress, or of a mother for her boy. 
The considerations which sway the people of one age, 
sex, or condition, do not necessarily influence all others 
or any others. The savage is not apt to be interested in 
refinements, nor the boy in abstract science ; both require 
to have the taste created. Nobody in the company may 
feel an interest in that girl except her lover, who watches 
her every motion. Appeals which powerfully affect cer- 
tain persons have no influence on others. The tale of 
distress which brings tears and alms from this man, 
meets with no response from that miser whose soul is 
bound up in his money bags. Even Peter the Hermit 
could not stir up a crusade of modern armies to recover 
the Holy Sepulchre. Protestants cannot be made to 
enter into the enthusiasm of pilgrimages to holy shrines. 
Modern science has undermined not a few superstitious 
faiths, which led to practices now regarded as degrading 
or cruel. One of the grand ends aimed at by education 

1 Aristotle announced the doctrine I am expounding, in the language I 
am using. 'OpenTin6v Se ovk oivev (pavracrias. De Anima, iii. 30. 



NATURE OF IDEA WHICH CALLS FORTH EMOTION. 45 

and by the church should be to implant and cherish high 
tastes and aspirations. 

In looking more particularly at the nature of the ideas 
which raise emotion, it will be found, I believe, that 
they are singular, that is of individual objects. I have 
not seen this position laid down anywhere ; but I am 
prepared to defend it, always with the proper explana- 
tions and limitations. It is the phantasm that awakens 
sentiment. But all phantasms are singular. The phan- 
tasm of a lily is of one lily. The general notion or 
concept of lily, that is lily in general, is of an indefinite 
number of lilies, joined by their common type. There 
is commonly a phantasm involved in the general notion, 
but it is of a single one, stripped of as many peculiarities 
as possible, of the individuals which constitute the class, 
and the phantasm does not constitute the class, but is 
merely a sign or representative to enable us to think of 
it. There are various intellectual operations involved in 
the concept " man," that is man in general, but the 
image before -the mind is of one man, with the things 
that distinguish one man from another left out as much 
as possible. Now the idea that evokes feeling is not of 
humankind in the general, or of humanity in the ab- 
stract, but of a man, woman, or child in a state of hap- 
piness or of distress. 

But this truth, which is a very important one, requires 
to be restricted and properly understood ; otherwise it 
will evidently be false. Under singular ideas are evi- 
dently to be included collective ones, in which we have 
an aggregate of individuals, as a congregation, an army. 
In the ideas are to be comprehended their associations, 
as those which collect around our birthplace and our 
home. A man loves his family, his village, his school, 
his college, his shop, his regiment, his farm, his work- 



46 SECOND ELEMENT : THE IDEA. 

shop, his country, and his church. Clubs and societies 
often gather round theui an intense interest. There is a 
sense in which even abstractions and generalizations 
may call forth feeling, by reason of the individuals em- 
braced in them and their associations, which may con- 
vey their sentiment to that which, combines them. The 
appeals by orators to liberty, to order, to love, or to re- 
ligion, may have a stimulating influence, and rouse to 
action. But the feeling is called forth by the associated 
ideas of persons, many or few, in whom we feel an in- 
terest. It is always the objects, and not our intellectual 
separations and combinations of them, which call forth 
emotion. 1 Whenever abstractions become very refined, 
or generalizations very wide, so as to be utterly separate 
from the objects, they cease to evoke feeling, which 
always comes forth most vividly and strongly when the 
living beings are set before us personally, as gratifying, 
or frustrating an affection of our nature. 

We talk of mankind loving the beautiful and the good, 
of their delighting in nature, and being awed with the 
sublime. If we understand these declarations simply as 
general- expressions of individual truths, they may be 
allowed to pass. But if we interpret them as meaning 
that there is emotion raised by the beautiful, the grand, 
the good, in the general or in the abstract, they leave 
an erroneous impression. No man ever had his heart 
kindled by the abstract idea of loveliness, or sublimity, 
or moral excellence, or any other abstraction. That 
which calls forth our admiration is a lovely scene, that 
which raises wonder and awe is a grand scene, that 
which calls forth love is not loveliness, in the abstract, 
but a lovely and loving person. That which evokes 

1 Aristotle has remarked that common notions (No^aro) are not with- 
out phantasms (oi5/c &vev <pu.vTaaiia.Twv). De Anim. iii. 7. 



NATURE OF IDEA WHICH CALLS FORTH EMOTION. 47 

moral approbation is not yirtue in the abstract, but a 
virtuous agent performing a virtuous act. In short, it is 
not the abstract but the concrete, not the generalizations 
of the comparative power, but objects animate and in- 
animate, perceived or imaged, which awaken our emo- 
tional nature. 

If those views be correct they furnish certain impor- 
tant practical results. 

(1.) We see how feeling is to be raised, either in our 
own breasts or in those of others. Feeling, it is evi- 
dent, cannot be compelled. It will not flow at our bid- 
ding, or simply in consequence of a voluntary deter- 
mination on our part ; we may resolve and resolve again, 
but no commands, threats, or terrors will make it unlock 
its fountains. And if it will not come from our own 
bosom in obedience to an order, still less can we expect 
it to flow from those of others because we require it. 
Nor is it sufficient to address the conscience, and to show 
that emotion ought to flow, for it will rather delight at 
times to rebel against an imposed authority. Are our 
feelings, then, as some would maintain, beyond our con- 
trol ? Do they rise and fall like the winds, how and 
when they list ? Do they flow and ebb like the tides, in 
obedience to impulses, which we can no more rule than 
Canute could command the waves of the ocean ? Were 
this so, man would indeed be in a most helpless condi- 
tion, more so than the sailor without a rudder in his 
ship, or the slave obliged to submit to the caprice of his 
master. But though a man may not be able to com- 
mand his sensibilities directly, he has complete power 
over them indirectly. He can guide and control, if not 
the feeling itself, at least the idea, which is the channel 
in which it flows. He may not be able to move his 
heart to pity by an act of the will, but he can call up 



48 SECOND ELEMENT : THE IDEA. 

a representation of a sufferer, and the compassion will 
burst out. Or better still, he can visit the house of 
mourning, he can enter the abode of the poor, the sick, 
the forlorn, the outcast, and as he witnesses their misery, 
or listens to their tale of sorrow, his heart - — if heart he 
has — will swell and heave with emotion. He can thus 
call up laudable sentiments, and thus too he can restrain 
desires, which would degrade, trouble, carnalize, or pol- 
lute the soul. Were he simply to resolve to conquer 
them by a strong act of will, he might fail. But he may 
be able to banish the unholy idea by calling in a more 
elevating one ; he may remove the object out of the way, 
or remove out of the way of the object, and the flame 
left without its feeder will die out. As man can thus 
control his feelings, he is responsible for them, for their 
perversion, for their excess, and defect. 1 

(2.) We see how powerless all those systems, whether 
of professed religion or morality, must be, which do not 
set before us a living and a loving God, to call forth 
toward Him our feelings of admiration and affection. 
Pantheism would substitute the love of the good for the 
love of God. We do not purpose, its advocates say, to 
do away with piety and adoration, we would rather 
purify and exalt them ; let men be taught to admire 
the grand, the perfect, the infinite, to love the fair, the 
beautiful, the good. We might meet this on the ground 

1 It was a favorite maxim of the Stoics that passion, irddos, depended on 
opinion, 5d|rj, or judgment, Kpiais (see Cicero, Tusc. Dis. iv. 6), and hence 
they drew the practical conclusion, that by judgment people could reach 
the LiraQeia which the sect so commended. The doctrine contained a truth, 
only it was better expressed by Aristotle, who said affection implied 
(pavraafw.. The conclusion of the Stoics did not follow, for there are ap- 
petences in our nature independent of judgment, and the ideas which 
generate affections are governed by associations which can only be coun- 
teracted by other associations. 



NATURE OF IDEA WHICH CALLS FORTH EMOTION. 49 

that it is setting aside the living and the true God, in 
favor of a creature, or rather fiction, of the human mind. 
But it concerns us rather at present to show that it con- 
tradicts some of the essential principles of human nature. 
The contemplation of the beautiful and the good, apart 
from a beautiful and good object, cannot evoke deep or 
lively emotion. Unless we place before the mind a per- 
sonal, a living, acting, benevolent God, the affections 
will not be drawn towards Him. On the same principle, 
the injunction or the recommendation of virtue in the 
abstract, as was done in so many of the pulpits, and by so 
many of the ethical writers of Great Britain in the mid- 
dle of the last century, is found to be utterly powerless 
upon the heart, character, and conduct, inasmuch as it is 
in no way fitted to move, to interest, or engage the affec- 
tions or any of the deeper principles of our nature. It is 
after a very different, and I maintain a much more philo- 
sophic manner, that the inspired writers proceed, in in- 
teresting the heart and swaying the conduct of mankind. 
They present to our faith a living God and a loving Sa- 
viour, and would thus attract the affections and form the 
character and influence the life. 

(3.) Gur doctrine admits an application to the art of 
rhetoric, as showing how feeling is to be excited. We 
are never, indeed, to neglect the more important task of 
enlightening and convincing the understanding in the 
view of impressing the sensibility. If the judgment is 
not convinced, feeling will be merely like the fire fed by 
straw, blazing for a time, it may be, to be speedily extin- 
guished, with only ashes remaining. But in order to 
secure consideration by the understanding, or when the 
understanding has been gained, it may be of advantage 
or it may be necessary to interest the heart. Now we 
have seen in what way the feelings are to be gained. No 
4 



50 SECOND .element: the idea. 

man ever stirred up feeling by simply showing that we 
ought to feel. Still less will it be roused by high sound- 
ing exclamations, such as " how lovely," " how good," 
" how sublime." Commonplace orators shout and rave 
in this way, without exciting in the breast of those who 
listen to them any feeling, except it be one of wonder, 
how the}'' should seem to be so warm when they are say- 
ing nothing fitted to warm us. A steady tide will be 
raised only where there is a body like the moon attracting 
the waters. He who would create admiration for good- 
ness must exhibit a good being performing a good action. 
He who would draw out compassion must bi'ing before 
us a person in distress. He who would rouse indignation 
must expose to us a deed of cowardice, deceit, or cruelty. 
Or if he would stir up gratitude he must show us favors 
conferred upon us. The most moving orators have al- 
ways dealt with incidents, tales, pictures, parables, fur- 
nishing living exhibitions of life. The Evangelists call 
forth deeper feeling by their simple narratives than they 
could have done by the most high-flown rhetoric. They 
never interpose between us and the object to which they 
call our attention, so as to obstruct the light that comes 
from it, by remarks of their own ; but standing out of 
the way and keeping themselves out of sight, they allow 
us to look, on Him and see " the king in his beauty." 
It is thus that the greatest of all teachers speaks. Pro- 
ceeding on some deep spiritual or moral principle, he 
troubles with no dry and mummied abstractions, with no 
complicated ratiocination. Sir W. Hamilton said that the 
most satisfactory reasoning is that in which there is only 
one link between the premises and conclusion. Our Lord 
fixes, by means of a picture, a truth in our mind which at 
once recommends itself to our convictions and calls forth 
feeling. He spoke as one who had command of the deep- 
est springs of our nature, and " not as the scribes." 



NATURE OF IDEA WHICH CALLS FORTH EMOTION. 51 

(4.) We see what is the language best fitted to raise 
feeling. For scientific purposes we are obliged to take 
terms from the Greek and Latin tongues. But these are 
not fitted to raise emotion, they always have the stiff 
bearing of a foreign language ; and should be used in 
poetry, moving oratory, and narrative only when neces- 
sary to give clearness and accuracy of thinking. 

I can conceive a language, like the manners of some 
men, becoming too artificial. I have sometimes felt that 
the French tongue, unmatched for its clarte, for its clean- 
cut forms, its transparency, and its capacity /or reducing 
abstruse truth to simplicity, is not so well adapted for 
eloquence and poetry that touches the heart. Happily 
our own tongue — and the same may be said of the Ger- 
man — has retained amid all its improvements the words 
that are life-like and home-like. The great body of 
them have descended — as our freshest streams do from 
the mountains — from a simple state of life, and they 
come to us with the character and the impress of the 
condition of society in which they originated. They re- 
semble in this respect the man who has risen in the 
world from the lower ranks, and who is now admitted, 
because of his talents and integrity, into the most polite 
circles ; and this though he has not "been able to shake 
himself altogether free from the manners of his youth. 
This may to some extent be a disadvantage in scientific 
thought, which needs an accurate nomenclature. But it 
is to a far larger extent a benefit that language has come 
down to us from a more natural state of things, just as 
the most refined circles are all the better at times for the 
infusion of fresh elements. The best language is that 
which has both kinds of phrases, — which retains the 
freshness of youth in the midst of the maturity of age. I 
have observed that the words that have descended from a 



52 SECOND ELEMENT : THE IDEA. 

more primitive state of things are those which occur to us 
most readily when we are expressing deep and heartfelt 
feeling. It is recorded of Burke, and is said of Carlyle, 
that though both used very complex forms in their writ- 
ings, they were apt in familiar intercourse with their 
friends to return, the one to the simple Irish, and the 
other to the Scotch idiom of their boyhood. I have no- 
ticed that some of our greatest orators, in their most 
moving passages, use the old Saxon phrases which, are 
redolent of genuine feeling. 

(5.) Let us guard the fountains of the affections, or, 
in better words, " Keep thy heart with all diligence ; for 
out of it are the issues of life." It is of vast moment, it 
should always be proclaimed, to have the mind widened 
by the refined analyses and grand generalizations of phi- 
losophy and science. These give an extended view of the 
world in which we live, and so enlarge the comprehen- 
sion and elevate the soul. But there is a risk that in 
being carried to these heights the warm current of life 
within be frozen, and in this case the loss is immeasur- 
ably greater than the gain. There are metaphysicians 
who have injured the health and the very color of the 
soul, by dwelling exclusively in the region of the ab- 
stract ; and scientists who feel no interest in the indi- 
vidual because of their enthusiasm about the universal. 
But there is no real inconsistency between the two : it 
is not fatally necessary when the head is being cleared 
that the heart should be rendered colder. While our 
knowledge of the general laws which regulate man and 
nature is expanded, let us take great care that we do not 
lose our interest in individual scenes and persons. This 
double advantage can be had only by our retaining our 
natural tastes alongside of our attainments, and by our 
returning from these excursions into remote regions with 



WORKS OF FICTION. 53 

renewed zest to what we should feel to be the most en- 
deared of all spots, — the home of the affections. 

SECTION II. 

WORKS OF FICTION. 

• Every one knows that the feelings are capable of 
being moved by imaginary as well as by real scenes. 
People weep over the distresses of the heroine of a novel, 
as they do over actual sorrow ; they glory in the success 
of a hero on the stage as they do in the exploits of one 
who once lived on the earth. How are we to account 
for this ? Do we believe for the instant that the scenes 
are real ? The common theory is that we do so. But is 
it necessary to resort to such a supposition ? It is not 
judgment or belief which stirs up emotion, but the phan- 
tasm of an object fitted to gratify or disappoint an affec- 
tion. It is the very idea of a human being in trouble, 
that raises pity ; of a virtuous man triumphing, that ex- 
cites admiration. If we have a tender or sympathetic 
nature we cannot contemplate a sensitive being as ex- 
posed to suffering, without being moved. What the 
novelist does is to present the picture, and the feeling 
goes toward the object. He often makes the representa- 
tion so vivid that it evokes keener excitement than the 
common scenes of life. The effect of the stage scenery 
and the acting is to make the whole more lively. In 
order to emotion, there does not seem to be any need of 
a belief in a positive existence. All that is required is 
that unbelief do not interpose to keep us from taking in 
the scene. Hence it is needful for the novelist, the au- 
thor, and the actor, to make all the accompaniments as 
probable and plausible as possible, lest unbelief scatter 
the idea and with it the feeling. I do not know that 



54 SECOND ELEMENT : THE IDEA. 

belief, the result of judgment, ever raises feeling, but 
when it is superinduced upon an appetible idea it se- 
cures its continuance. I acknowledge the need of a be- 
lief in the reality of the vision, to keep the eye steady 
and prevent it from being distracted by the other objects 
constantly pressing themselves on the attention. 

It is to gratify the appetences of our nature by means 
of ideas, calling forth feeling with its excitements and 
attachments, that tales have been invented, first recited, 
then written, and then printed. This invention is usu- 
ally ascribed to the imagination by critics, who do not 
tell us what the imagination is. No doubt the tales do 
gratify the imagination, which (like every other power 
of the mind) delights to be exercised both in its imaging 
and its compounding powers, by compounding meaning, 
putting materials into new forms and dispositions. But 
the pictures will not please unless they possess a human 
interest, and call forth the emotions which are the pow- 
ers specially exercised and gratified. It has always ap- 
peared to me that Shelley's poetry is addressed to the im- 
agination rather than the feelings, and hence will never 
exercise a powerful popular influence, like that of Burns, 
of Goldsmith, and Longfellow. 

People at all ages of life and of all times delight in 
such creations. Infants have dolls, which perform a 
part in a drama which they are weaving. How eagerly 
do children listen to stories by their mothers and nurses, 
and are specially moved by scenes of adventure, like 
Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, or of unmer- 
ited suffering, as the Babes in the Wood. In later years, 
people are apt not only to have night dreams but day 
dreams ; and many indulge in building aerial castles. 
The rudest nations have their myths, expressing their 
prejudices, their prides, and their revenges. The Ara- 



WORKS OF FICTION. 55 

bians have had their " thousand and one tales " recited 
at their camp-fires. As nations advance a stage farther, 
their imaginations, still emotional, become enshrined in 
poetry, which in most cases comes before written prose. 
At a later stage we have romances, which at first are apt 
to deal with the monstrous and the supernatural, and 
which, as they are sobered down by the critical judgment, 
become the modern novel, which professes to exhibit act- 
ual life always in its emotional aspects. 

It cannot be doubted that dramatists and novelists 
have added considerably to our knowledge of human nat- 
ure, in some respects more than metaphysicians or his- 
torians, or even biographers. Metaphysicians can give 
us only the principles which operate at all times and are 
the same in all men, but do not let us into the springs 
which influence individual men, women, and children, at 
particular times. Historians give us events and exhibit 
actors ; but there is no window by which they can look 
into the souls of the actors, and we can only guess at the 
motives by which they are swayed. It is the same, to 
some extent, with biographers: they may have no means 
by which to ascertain the motives leading to the acts 
which they detail; even when they have a diary, it may 
not aid them very much, for the person whose life is writ- 
ten may be as ignorant of what has swayed him as the 
person who writes his life. In saying so, I do not mean 
to undervalue those sources of information, which, imper- 
fect as they are, are often the only ones at our command. 
But our knowledge of mankind is to be obtained after all 
from the inspection of ourselves, and from mingling with 
mankind in family and social intercourse, and in the 
transactions of business. In plays and tales the writers 
take . up peculiarities of character, which we may not 
meet with every day, and exhibit them in infinitely diver- 



56 SECOND ELEMENT: THE IDEA. 

sifted circumstances. Shakespeare is not always quite ac- 
curate in his history ; nor does he always give the right ac- 
count of the queen, king, warrior, or statesman ; but he is 
ever true to human nature, and the characters described, 
if not invariably real, might have been real. Some think 
we may get a deeper acquaintance with human nat- 
ure from the study of Shakespeare than from the read- 
ing of any historical work on the periods which he has 
sketched. There are other authors, such as Scott, and, 
I may add, George Eliot, who have seized on certain pe- 
culiarities of human character and exhibited them with 
amazing skill. But, on the other hand, no class of writers 
are so apt to mislead us, or do in fact mislead so many 
readers in the present day, when novels are so devoured. 
Interesting tales have been written by persons who have 
had no acquaintance, no means of acquaintance, with 
mankind generally, who commit the most extraordinary 
blunders in their every-day conduct, and to whom we 
would not intrust the practical management of the most 
insignificant matter. There are novel writers who, with- 
out any enlarged or deep knowledge of mankind, such as 
the author of John Halifax, have yet, by a very appre- 
ciative observation of what has passed under their notice, 
given us true and very valuable delineations of character. 
This perception is most likely to be possessed by women, 
who by native disposition and training are led more than 
the other sex to observe and understand the strength and 
weakness, the nicer feelings, and the foibles of men and 
women. But others, from the narrowness of their sym- 
pathies and of their means of observation, have given us 
only caricatures of humanity ; this is often the case with 
Dickens, who could faithfully portray only such charac- 
ters as he had met with in police courts and in his pecul- 
iar circle, and utterly fails in his pictures of mankind in 



WOEKS OF FICTION. 57 

general. No one of our novelists has been able to appre- 
ciate and to describe every variety of human nature. 
Some have represented ' their heroes and heroines as 
swayed by all sorts of impossible motives. Many of 
the figures which pass before us are felt to be unrealities 
by all who know mankind. We certainly should not 
like to have such characters as the Vicar of Wakefield, 
Rasselas, and the Cheeryble Brothers to disappear from 
our literature ; but they are not found and cannot be 
found with all their peculiarities in actual life. The 
consequence is that a large portion of the life portrayed 
in our works of fiction is fantastic and deceptive. Of 
all people, our habitual novel readers are the most igno- 
rant of human nature, and the most likely to make mis- 
takes in their intercourse with mankind. This may arise 
in part from the artificial situations in which the figures 
in works of fiction have to be placed for the sake of ef- 
fect, but it proceeds mainly from the unreal characters 
conjured up. 

It is a curious question, What is to be the effect on 
character of the excessive novel reading of the age in 
which all read novels, in which most young persons de- 
vour them in large quantities, and in which many read 
little else ? It is too wide a question to be discussed in a 
work like this. The scenes gratify the imaging power 
of the mind, they move us out of our habitual torpor, 
and take us away from our petty troubles. The ideal 
pictures help to raise men above themselves and above 
the gross selfishness of the world. To those who have 
other means of knowledge and who have good sense to 
guide them, the pictures disclose peculiarities of charac- 
ter which they are not likely to meet with in society. 
On the other hand, unless there be a proper, and this 
should be a preponderating proportion, of the reading of 



58 SECOND ELEMENT : THE IDEA. 

works dealing with realities, there is a risk that the minds 
thus nurtured take a very erroneous view of their fellow 
men and of the world. The tendency will be to create an 
imaginary world, of persons clothed with attributes, good 
or evil, which they do not possess, and in expectation or 
in fear of extraordinary good fortunes or reverses. This 
will be especially the case with those who are of a nerv- 
ous temperament, or whose imagination is stronger than 
their judgment. In some instances excessive indulgence 
in the practice leads to frivolity, in others to sulkiness. 
In all cases the reading, except in a moderate degree, of 
works of fiction, is apt to produce moodiness, or dream- 
iness of spirit, or an irritation of temper, going out to- 
wards inmates of the family, or a discontent with the 
world, with its business, and its quiet enjoyments. The 
abode for a lengthened time in this imaginary world un- 
fits us for the real one, which is felt to be chill after 
being in so heated an atmosphere. Actual life seems dull 
and prosaic after mingling in so much more stimulating 
scenes ; and its society is felt to be vulgar after associat- 
ing with heroes and heroines. As in the use of bodily 
stimulants, the demand will be for a stronger and yet a 
stronger draught, with new and more spicy ingredients. 
Nor is it a sufficient reply to say that the tales can work 
no mischief, as we do not believe them while we read 
them. For the influence they exert does not arise from 
our believing them, but from the phantasies with the cor- 
responding feelings, silently and unconsciously leaving 
their impression on the mind. 

A poem is less likely than a novel to lead to such re- 
sults, because it is commonly denser in thought, and 
diverts by a great many harmonies of sentiment and ex- 
pression. Poetry pleases not only by its narratives, but 
by its rhythm of language, embodying what is far more 



WORKS OF FICTION. 59 

important, a rhythm of thought. The question has 
often been asked, What constitutes poetry? The answers 
have commonly been very confused and confusing. The 
question would admit of a more satisfactory answer, if 
put in this form, " What sort of ideas should be enshrined 
in verse ? " All kinds may be expressed appropriately 
in prose, but only certain ranks are entitled to be clothed 
in the courtly garb of poetry. It may be safely said 
that all that is fitted to stir and gratify the imagination, 
and to move the feelings, may be — I do not say it always 
should be — put in poetical form. In using this language 
I do not mean it to include eloquence, which may rouse 
both the imagination and the feelings ; but this all 
towards a particular end, to lead to action which would 
often be impeded by too glowing pictures — as we have 
in Burke's speeches — or formed into measured lines. 
Poetry attains its purpose when its excitement gratifies 
and pleases ; it promotes a high purpose when its pict- 
ures elevate the mind ; it serves a moral purpose when 
it molds the character for excellence. 

It has often been remarked that poetry is the product, 
and thus one of the characteristics of the age. Homer 
and Scott represent the period, not of war, but of the 
romance which in an age or two after gathers round 
military exploits. JEschylus and Goethe and Shelley are 
the expression of ages in which reflective thought, and 
with it doubting thought, have appeared. Horace lives 
in the age in which men are losing their faith in the 
superstitions and the moral saws of their forefathers. 
Virgil expresses the faith that still remains, and the 
hope that anticipates a better state of things. Dante 
comes forth with terrible earnestness when religious ref- 
ormation is called for, and he has, like spring, to break 
up the winter. Chaucer pictures the times when men 



60 SECOND ELEMENT : THE IDEA. 

have seen the evils around them, but are still practicing 
them. Shakespeare bursts forth when there is a uni- 
versal upheaving of thought, like the sprouting of all 
sorts of life in the seed-time. Milton is the embodiment 
of the later puritanism, which is losing its stern doctrine, 
but holding by its high ethical ideal. Butler and Burns 
represent the times in which there was a recoil from the 
old faith, and an antiquated morality. Cowper's poems 
are the breathing of the evangelical life rising from the 
dead. 

It has been noticed that there is often, no one would 
say always, a relation between the poetry of an age and 
the philosophic thought of the times immediately pre- 
ceding. JEschylus and the Greek tragedians follow the 
earlier, and are contemporaneous with the later, pre-So- 
cratic schools of philosophy. Aristophanes comes forth 
with his mirth and his dance, on the stage prepared by 
the Sophists. Lucretius follows the introduction into 
Italy of the philosophy of Epicurus, which was breaking 
up the old Roman beliefs and morals. Ovid and Horace 
wrote when the New Academy was discussing every- 
thing, but believing in nothing, and a fully expanded 
Epicureanism had called in philosophy to the defense of 
pleasure. Racine represents the age when Catholicism, 
defended by Bossuet, was patronized by the court, and 
had taken its most imposing form. Voltaire gave ex- 
pression to the sneers which the detection of the hypoc- 
risy of the church called forth. Pope put into elegant 
verse the philosophy of Bolingbroke in the age of ration- 
alism and deism. Thomson was the first to express the 
rising admiration of nature called forth by Sir Isaac 
Newton and the culture of physical science. The sub- 
jective philosophy of Kant and his school gave an ideal 
direction to Goethe and Schiller, and, it may be added, 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS IN EMOTION. • 61 

Coleridge and Wordsworth, the last being further swayed 
by a genuine love of nature. Tennyson has undoubtedly 
felt the Broad Church influence which began to walk 
abroad in his time, as opposed to the ritualism which 
stimulated Keble. To correspond with the materialism 
of the present day we have Swinburne and others, form- 
ing a sensuous, tending to become a sensual, school. 

The rationale of this can be given. Poetry is not 
philosophy, but the poet is swayed by the ideas of the 
age in which he has been educated, so far as it has had 
an influence rained down upon it, and a perfume scat- 
tered by the higher thoughts of the country. Some 
poets, it is true, like Shakespeare and Burns, speak from 
the heart, and to all. times ; but others, the product of 
the times, address the times, and can get a hearing from 
the times because they do so. Some, like Wordsworth, 
are before their time, and can get readers only after 
readers have been prepared for them. Poetry, which is 
the expression of emotion, is as it were the color and the 
odor of the deepest thought and sentiment of the age. 
But as the hues and perfume of a plant take their char- 
acter, coarse and fetid, or lovely and pure, from the nat- 
ure of the plant, and the soil in which it grows, so the 
poetry of an age, or a country, takes its quality, no doubt, 
from the predilections of the poets, but these deter- 
mined by the prevailing modes of belief and feeling in 
the society in which they have been reared. 



SECTION III. 

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS IN EMOTION. 

It does not devolve on me in this work to unfold the 
laws of the association of ideas : the discussion of this 
subject rather falls within the department of the cogni- 



62 SECOND ELEMENT : THE IDEA. 

tive powers. Still it is necessary to look at it as bearing 
on the rise and the flow of the emotions. 

A question which has never been satisfactorily an- 
swered is here started : Is there an association among our 
feelings, or is the association solely among our ideas? It 
is admitted on all hands that our ideas are associated ac- 
cording to certain laws ; that, for instance, when things 
have been together in the mind and one comes up, the 
others are apt to come up also, and that like suggests like. 
But do our emotions, say of hope and fear, of sorrow and 
joy, of sympathy and anger, also suggest each other, and 
if so, according to what laws. This is a much more per- 
plexing inquiry, and has been made so mainly by the 
want of a proper analysis of emotion and of a true ap- 
prehension of the relation of feeling to the intellect and 
of the place which the idea has in emotion. 

One thing is very clear : an emotional state tends to 
propagate itself. It suffuses like thaw throughout our 
whole nature and softens it; it diffuses through all our 
faculties. This may arise to some extent from the or- 
ganic affection. It should always be noticed that all 
emotion, properly speaking, begins within ; but all our 
stronger mental feelings are accompanied with an excited 
state of the brain. When this is roused it continues for 
a time according to physiological laws. If the organism 
is affected by any one emotion the wave is propagated 
throughout the whole. The roused brain and nervous 
organism react on the mental train, and the combined 
body and mind are for a time in a state of excitement, — 
wave succeeds wave. Take the case of a man in a pas- 
sion. He has been insulted ; his honor is impugned. 
Ideas rise up of reputation damaged, of injury done him ; 
these address a nature sensitive about character, and 
the corresponding organism is disturbed ; there is a visi- 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS IN EMOTION. 63 

ble flush on the face, the eyes emit fire, and the whole 
frame is agitated. The consciousness of the man shows 
that a series of emotional ideas is moving on in his 
mind, all. directed to one point by the deep lying ap- 
petence. There are ideas with the corresponding feelings 
of humiliation, of ill usage received, of anger, of resent- 
ment ; and plans of defence, of resistance, and revenge, 
are suggested, and arguments to repel the attack are 
prepared ; or, in the case of persons who lay no moral re- 
straint on themselves, blows are resorted to, or a chal- 
lenge is sent. Or look at this mother who has just had 
the intelligence brought her that her son has perished at 
sea. There is, first, the occurrence realized with the vivid 
picture of the dear son sinking in the waters, gone from 
this world to be seen no more, pleasant memories of the 
past coming up cruelly to torment the present and to 
darken the future. Along with all this, and continuing 
all this, is an excited nervous state, venting itself in sobs, 
in tears, possibly in writhings of the body, or in frantic 
tearing of the hair or clothes, and ending, it may be, in 
prostration, or in fainting. 

It requires a very nice analysis to separate the parts, 
the impulses and the ideas, from the cerebral affections 
of the body, in such cases as these. But there is evi- 
dently, first of all, a deep appetence, then an idea appeal- 
ing to it, then an organic affection, then a mingled ex- 
citement, both of body and mind. The appetence and 
the affected organism together keep up the excited state, 
and one idea comes up after another, all emotional. In 
the course of time, in some cases a longer and in others a 
shorter, according to the temperament of the individual, 
the organic storm blows itself out, and there is a lull and 
an aversion to have high feeling prolonged. If the affec- 
tion — if the fire — be weak, it will be very much weak- 



64 SECOND ELEMENT: THE IDEA. 

ened or extinguished nearly, or altogether. But if there 
be a deep internal heat it will still burn, though it may- 
be in a subdued and smothered form for a season, and 
will in due time burst forth once more on fuel being 
heaped on it. 

It is clear, then, that there is a sense in which emotions 
are associated. When the mind and organism are in an 
emotional state, there is a predisposition towards feeling. 
The feelings raised are of a certain type, which is deter- 
mined by the appetence aroused, possibly to some extent 
by a special cerebral organ allotted to it. If the appe- 
tence be love of children, and a son be drowned, the 
tumult all bears on the lost one. There will first be a 
flowing and then an ebbing tide. But in all these cases 
we must distinguish between the idea and the feeling, 
between both and the affected organism, and not fail to 
notice how the origination of the whole is to be traced to 
the appetence. To clear up the subject, it will be expe- 
dient first to look at the laws of the association of ideas, 
independent of their connection with emotion, and then 
we shall be in a better position to determine the influence 
of emotion in directing the train of thought, and of emo- 
tion in influencing the association. 

The Primary Laws of association, those which regu- 
late the succession of our thoughts, have been, it is ac- 
knowledged, approximately determined, sufficiently so 
for our present purpose ; they may be represented as 
Contiguity and Correlation. 

(1.) When ideas have been in the mind together, on 
one of them coming up the others are apt to follow. This 
law may take two forms, that of Succession and of Co- 
existence. When ideas have followed each other a num- 
ber of times, on one casting up it brings the whole train 
with it. Taking advantage of this law, the boy, when he 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS IN EMOTION. 65 

would commit to memory a passage in prose or poetry, 
repeats it a number of times. This is the law of succes- 
sion. Again, when things have been together in the 
mind once, twice, ten times, a hundred times, — on any 
one of them coming up it is apt to recall another, or all 
the others. Having seen several persons in one company, 
when I again meet with one of them I am apt to think 
of the others. It is the law of coexistence. One pecul- 
iarity of the law of contiguity in both forms has a very 
special bearing on our subject. Associated ideas are apt 
to come up in groups. A mother in opening a drawer 
meets unexpectedly with a favorite toy of a departed 
child. What a rush of emotion, of scenes never to be 
forgotten, with the occurrences following each other and 
of associated circumstances, the central figure being still 
the beloved one. We are thus able to explain one very 
marked feature of passion and affection, the gathering 
of ideas around the object, to prolong and intensify the 
feeling. 

(2.) When we have discovered a relation between 
things, the one is apt to recall the other. Thus, like re- 
calls like. I see a portrait and it brings up the original. 
The father is recalled every time the widowed mother 
sees her boy. Resemblance is only one of many rela- 
tions that may connect things. Means and end, cause 
and effect, equalities and proportions, may all associate 
things in our mind and make the one reproduce the 
other. This law is a mighty aid to science, as it brings 
up things according to their relations of class and cause. 
It has not such an influence on emotion. Hence, the 
thought-trains of the man of science and the man of sen- 
sibility are commonly found to be very different. The 
association by correlation tends to keep feeling within 
proper bounds, by suggesting cautious dangers incurred, 
5 



66 SECOND ELEMENT: THE IDEA. 

maxims of prudence and of common sense, all to guard 
against excess. Hence, children, savages, persons of un- 
trained intellect, whose suggestions rise up mainly ac- 
cording to the laws of contiguity, are apt to yield to 
the impulse of the moment and allow it to carry them 
whithersoever it will, whereas to those who have prepa- 
rata et digesta mens, to use a phrase of Bacon's, associa- 
tions present themselves which lead them to bank in the 
stream and allow it to flow in its proper and restricted 
channel. 

But there are others, what are called Secondary Laws 
of association, which have a much closer relation with 
emotion. The primary laws are those which regulate 
the succession of our thoughts at all times, so that no 
thought can spring up spontaneously, except in accord- 
ance with them. But at any given moment of our exist- 
ence there may be a number of objects, half a dozen, 
twenty, a hundred, so associated with the present idea 
that they could come up according to the primaiy laws. 
In passing through the British Museum, or the Gallery of 
Paintings at Dresden, I may have noticed for the mo- 
ment hundreds of objects ; and it is possible that any one 
of these might present itself to my phantasy ; but on 
these places being mentioned, only a few come up, prob- 
ably first one and then others in succession. Why does 
this one and then these others come to the front, while the 
rest keep in the background ? The answer to this ques- 
tion brings us to secondary laws, modifying the pri- 
mary, to what Hamilton calls laws of preference, — an 
appropriate enough phrase, provided it be not understood 
that preference implies choice or exercise of will — the 
secondary laws work quite as involuntarily as the pri- 
mary. The question is, Can we discover and express 
these secondary laws? I believe we can do so approxi- 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS IN EMOTION. 67 

mately with quite as much certainty as we can the pri- 
mary. First, there is a law of Native Taste and Talent. 
This exists, like all other laws, in the form of a tendency 
to act in a certain way. It consists, to a greater or less 
extent, of a disposition of the cerebral and nervous organ- 
ism. Our mental operations are continually producing 
what Carpenter calls "a mental cerebration," that is, they 
produce a certain state and arrangement of the cells of 
the gray matter of the brain. When the infant begins 
to speak or to walk, it finds every act laborious, irksome, 
and awkward. Attempt after attempt is made, success- 
ful and unsuccessful. But by perseverance a particular 
structure is given to the brain and the ganglia and the 
nerves, and action becomes easy. The action never be- 
comes, as some physiologists seem to think, automatic. 
It is always necessary to have some act of the will to 
originate the whole, to start the speech or the step. But 
whereas at the first there had to be a series of tentative 
volitions, many of them failures, now by a beautiful pro- 
vision of nature, or rather of Him who gave to nature its 
laws and dispositions, there is an adapted organic struct- 
ure which needs only one simple act of the will to start 
it, when it acts automatically. How difficult does the 
child find it, how easy do we now find it to utter that 
word " automatically," all because there is no arranged 
mechanism in the one case, while there is in the other. 

Secondly, there is the law of Mental Energy. Those 
ideas come up most frequently and readily, on which we 
have bestowed the greatest amount of mental force. 

It may be an energy of Intellect. We have thought 
much on a particular subject, we have turned it round 
and round in our mind, it will henceforth be apt to pre- 
sent itself, and bring with it the objects with which it 
has been associated. Hence a man's business, that which 



68 SECOND ELEMENT: THE IDEA. 

has been occupying him for hours every day, ever comes 
up before him, even when he does not wish it, and when 
he would rather be relieved from its pressure. Intel- 
lectual activity and industry thus bring with them their 
proper reward, in a mind trained and predisposed toward 
the work that has been pursued. 

It may be an energy of Will, especially of attention, 
which is an exercise of will. When we fix our minds on 
an object, and continue to do so for a greater or less 
length of time, and revert to it once and again, it will be 
inclined to come to us whenever an opportunity allows. 
By this means we have the current of our thoughts more 
at our command than we are apt to imagine. As we 
habitually will, so will be the habitual tenor of our 
frames of mind. 

It may also be an energy of Feeling. This is the law 
which falls more particularly under our notice in this 
work. Whatever has been associated with emotion is 
apt to come up before the mind. We have seen that 
the idea determines the emotion ; we now see that the 
emotion may determine the frequency of the occurrence 
of the idea. The two together must have a mighty in- 
fluence on the train of thought and on the character. 
The man of strong sensibility will ever have emotional 
ideas springing up in his mind, and these ideas will tend 
to recur and bring the sentiment with them. As the 
basis of the feeling, there will always be the appetence ; 
but it is the idea that awakens the appetence, and in the 
case before us the feeling experienced has made the idea 
to appear. 

This seems to me to be the rationale of the associa- 
tion of emotions. Organically, emotion puts us into a 
state of sensibility, and when in this state every feeling 
stirred up produces a greater perturbation. The feeling, 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS IN EMOTION. 69 

in proportion to its intensity, tends to bring back the 
idea at its basis once and again, all to renew the feeling 
and the organic affection. Take the case of the sorrow 
of a widow who has just lost her husband. At the root 
of the whole is the deep affection, then an idea of the 
separation and the loss, and then intense mental excite- 
ment with organic disturbance. This is the immediate 
sorrow. As a consequence, the idea of the loss comes up 
again and again, to renew the sorrow. After a season 
there is apt to be an abatement : first, from the organic 
wave expending itself, so that the mental emotion does 
not so agitate it ; and secondly, from new associations 
springing up, possibly new affections formed, or old 
affections strengthened, say a more intense devotedness 
of the widow to the children of the departed. If the 
affection has never been deep, the sorrow evaporates in 
this way, leaving nothing but a dry indifference, capa- 
ble, like ashes, only of an occasional and momentary 
kindling. If the affection has been strong, the grief will 
abide with the widow for life, but it will be less violent, 
and will be relieved by pleasant reminiscences and by 
useful occupations. 

We have here a picture of every other violent passion, 
such as anger, or disappointment, or shame, or remorse. 
The nervous affection is excited, and then it subsides. 
Crowds of thoughts, all tending to feed the passion, come 
up according to that primary law of coexistence which 
brings up associations in groups, but are in the course of 
time varied, and, it may be, dissipated and scattered by 
new experiences. We thus see the advantage, if we 
would abate passion, of keeping away from scenes which 
might provoke it, and going — traveling, if need be — 
into new scenes which raise new associations. We are 
accustomed to say that time has wrought the change, 



70 SECOND ELEMENT: THE IDEA. 

but in fact it has been by these mental and physical 
agencies having had time to work. 

Proceeding on this analysis, we can explain certain 
mental phenomena often commented on. Some are vio- 
lently affected with grief or passion at the time, and 
soon lose all feeling ; while others, not, it may be, so 
ruffled on the surface, are as strongly moved in the 
depths of their hearts for long years after. Again, some 
are all feeling at all times, and have perpetual smiles of 
benignity on their countenance, and expressions of sym- 
pathy ever flowing from their lips, and at times tears 
trickling from their eyes — all, it may be, perfectly sin- 
cere at the time ; but then you cannot make them take 
an abiding interest in any one person, or in the best of 
causes. Whence the difference ? It may arise so far 
from a mere organic mobility in the one class of persons, 
and an inorganic immobility in the other class. But the 
essential difference lies in the circumstance, that in the 
former there is merely a surface rill of excitement, act- 
ing on an organic impressibility, which soon runs dry, 
whereas in the other there is a deep fountain of affec- 
tion or hatred, ready to burst out, and forcing, when it 
does not find, a channel. 

These laws may enable us to explain a well-known 
mental action. A man promises to do a certain act at a 
certain hour. The wonder is, not that he should at 
times forget it, but that in ordinary circumstances he 
should remember it, and perform what he intended. 
How does it happen that in the multitude of the thoughts 
within him, he should think of the act at the proper mo- 
ment and proceed to do it ? The answer to this question 
will bring before Us a general fact of our mental nature 
which has very much escaped the notice of psychologists. 
It is that a determination to do a particular act may 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS IN EMOTION. 71 

reach forward in its influence through a considerable pe- 
riod. The determination to awake at a particular hour 
during the night may run through our half conscious 
thoughts and enable us to rise about the time we wish. 
How are we to explain this ? 

It is clear that we must bring in first the law of men- 
tal energy, according to which, what we have bestowed 
a great deal of force on is sure to come up more fre- 
quently and readily. If our resolution is formed loosely, 
without any thought or earnestness, it is very apt never 
to come up again, or come up only after the time for ac- 
tion is over. It may be noticed, too, that if we form a 
purpose or give a promise in the midst of distractions, or 
when we are eagerly bent on some other end, the whole 
is apt to pass away from the mind, or to recur when it is 
too late. We are most apt to remember when our reso- 
lution relates to something towards which we have a 
strong natural or acquired appetence. It is almost cer- 
tain to come up when it falls in with our habits, or when 
it is associated with something that must come before us, 
say with a particular place, or hour, or occurrence. The 
lover is not likely to forget the appointment he has made 
with the loved one, and should he fail to remember it it 
would be taken as an evidence that his affection was not 
very deep. In these cases all the laws of association 
combine to recall the resolution or the promises. When 
these do not assist us our only resource is to fix the de- 
termination very deeply in our minds and bring it up 
from time to time, that it may become more deeply 
rooted and be made to come up more certainly. All 
such processes are themselves mental, but leave an un- 
conscious impress on the brain, and thus favor the recol- 
lection, in a way which physiology should try to explain, 
but which it cannot explain at this moment. 



72 SECOND ELEMENT: THE IDEA. 

SECTION IV. 

SPONTANEOUS FLOW OP THOUGHT. 

There is a train of idea and emotion which we are dis- 
posed to follow every given instant, impelled uncon- 
sciously by deep underlying appetences, natural and ac- 
quired, and flowing in the channels opened by the laws 
of association, intellectual and emotive. 

Our floating ideas, not determined by outward circum- 
stances or by some fixed purpose, move like clouds in 
the sky. Sometimes they are light and fleecy, and we 
walk or rest pleasantly under them. Sometimes they 
are bright and cheerful like the morning dawn, and we 
are inspired by hope and incited to activity. Sometimes 
they are glowing and radiant like the evening sky, and 
we gaze upon them with delight and linger itf their 
splendors. At other times they are as chill as mists, and 
our sensations are uncomfortable and our prospects dis- 
mal. Or they are dark and scowling, foreboding rain 
and tempest, or are ready to burst out in thunder and 
lightning. Quite as frequently — indeed it is the com- 
mon experience of many — they are dull and uninterest- 
ing, like a gray stream of clouds, such as I have seen in 
Ireland, floating whole days in one direction, concealing 
the blue sky and darkening the earth ; and we wish to 
have the exciting storm rather than this monotony. 
Much of human happiness and misery, much of human 
character is determined by this flowing stream, just as 
the lines of ancient civilization were determined by the 
great rivers, the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Ganges. 
When the train is pleasant we commit ourselves to it 
and go on with it. But then we are liable to be annoyed 
at any moment by intruders interrupting it. Much of 
that fretful ness which we call temper may be traced to 



SPONTANEOUS FLOW OF THOUGHT. 73 

this source. No doubt there may be other causes operat- 
ing. There may be pains, more or less keen, arising 
from disease or accident ; there may be the loss of ob- 
jects on which we set a value ; but even the annoyances 
thus produced may derive their force from their disturb- 
ing a train of earnest, or vain, or proud, or lustful ideas, 
all pursuing their courses. A person, eagerly bent on a 
favorite end, finds an untoward event coming across his 
path, and he bursts into a passion. Or he is happy in 
cherishing a sense of his own ability, or courage, or 
worth, and there is a remark made, which ruffles his self- 
complacency, and his manner is changed on the instant. 
How unwilling are the gay and the frivolous to be con- 
strained to turn to study, or to the business of life, with 
its habitual dullness and its frequent disappointments. 
The harshest sounds do not so grate on the ears listening 
to the finest music, as these interruptions do upon the 
easy flow of association. In this way we can account for 
the sensitive aversion to certain scenes and persons ; their 
appearance calls up unpleasant scenes in the past to dis- 
turb the complacent humor of the present. " I hate him, 
for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but only 
evil." 

When outward circumstances do not harmonize with 
the inward train, there is apt to be a strain and a strug- 
gle. The girl, the boy, even the man, who has been en- 
grossed with play and amusement, is reluctant to turn 
to work which requires a constant effort. Much of the 
complaint of discontent in this world proceeds from 
persons not being suited to their surroundings, from 
their being placed in positions which have an entirely 
unconformable shape, so that they jar on each other as 
they turn. Hence the propriety of so far studying the 
dispositions, as well as the capacities of boys in the 



74 SECOND ELEMENT: THE IDEA. 

choice of a profession ; if there be a strong taste there 
will be the risk of a collision if it is thwarted. Chatter- 
ton, with a strong poetical predilection, could not be 
contented in the shop of a druggist; and David Hume, 
with a love for literature and reflection, found the study 
of law to be irksome in Edinburgh ; and feeling mercan- 
tile pursuits to be still more irksome in Bristol, betook 
himself to France and to philosophy. We can account 
in this way for the incompatibilities of temper which 
often manifest themselves soon after marriage. There 
are not only the different tastes of those thus thrown so 
closely together, there are the different and colliding 
lines in which their trains of association run. The hus- 
band starts a topic in which he is intensely interested, 
but is surprised to find that it jars on the cherished ideas 
of his wife, who becomes irritated, and an expression 
escapes her which kindles the ire of her partner, or sinks 
him into moody silence, or ferments his dissatisfaction 
into sourness. In all such cases, it will be found that by 
firm moral principle and forbearance the two can have 
their forms so bent as to fit into each other, — as two 
somewhat discordant time-pieces can be, made to keep the 
same time by being placed on the same wall. Still it is 
better when from the first there is a correspondence of 
taste, — which may not imply an identity, for they may 
conform all the more when a prominence in the one fits 
into a deficiency of the other, when light-heartedness 
buoys up gravity, by which it is balanced and kept from 
leaving the earth and floating in the air. 

It has to be added that there are some so selfish, and 
have so yielded to capricious temper, that they cannot be 
adjusted to any ordinary state of things, and they must 
take to themselves the blame of those incompatibilities 
which they throw on others, or on their situation. The 



SPONTANEOUS FLOW OF THOUGHT. 75 

genus irritabile vatum have often shown themselves un- 
willing to submit to the restraints of the family and of 
society. The sea-shore pebble has been rounded and 
smoothed by its being rolled by the waters ; and it is 
part of the wholesome discipline to which we are sub- 
jected in this world, that in the frictions of business and 
professional competition, of the family and the social 
circle, we are made to learn the charity which " suffereth 
long and is kind." 

Even when the train is indifferent, or so far painful, 
we are apt to follow it, rather than keep up a constant 
fight with it. It is true that the train can so far be in- 
fluenced by the will detaining a present thought, which 
may collect other thoughts, and in time wear a new 
channel. But in all this we have to resist the stream, 
and the exertion is felt to be laborious, and wastes the 
energy, and is apt to be given up because of the irksome- 
ness. Even the sluggish monastic life comes to have its 
attractions to many as permitting an accustomed train 
which is seldom disturbed, and is encouraged by the self- 
righteous spirit engendered ; though I rather think there 
are cases in which, after the depression which may have 
led the persons to devote themselves to such a life has 
passed away, the old and worldly spirit awakes to take a 
life-long vengeance. The idle and the vagrant cannot 
resist the temptations presented by the freedom they en- 
joy in following their own ways. We can thus explain 
what has been called the indulgence in melancholy. 
The old habit can be thoroughly conquered only by the 
formation of new habits, that is, by channels cut out 
by the currents coming in from new quarters. Let it be 
observed, that in all this there are dominant appetences 
leading on a train of ideas of an emotional character. 

Very different effects follow when the appetences tend 



76 SECOND ELEMENT : THE IDEA. 

towards the unpleasant, and the ideas in the train are 
painful. With some, especially those laboring under a 
diseased nervous temperament, the stream conducts from 
one unpleasant topic to another : the faces of lost friends 
present themselves, they think only of injuries done 
them, of insults offered them, of misfortunes that have 
befallen, or they picture coming woes. The endeavor 
will now be, to be delivered from these associations. To 
relieve themselves from such pain, some betake them- 
selves to scenes of boisterous mirth, or mad excitement. 
In the depression that follows a period of excitement, 
persons are driven to return to their old scenes of folly. 
It is thus that the afflicted have to leave the scenes 
where the misfortune occurred ; thus that the wife has 
to abandon the home where her husband was murdered 
and the youth to forsake the locality where his father 
disgraced himself ; thus that husbands have murdered 
their wives, to be rid of the memorials of domestic cru- 
elty or of broken vows. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE THIED ELEMENT : THE EXCITEMENT "WITH ATTACH- 
MENT AND BEPUGNANCE. 

SECTION I. 

THEIR GENERAL NATURE. 

We have seen that as the reservoir of all emotion 
there is an affection or an appetence, and that the waters 
flow out in a channel supplied by the idea. Let us now 
view the inward impulse as actually bursting forth. The 
soul is now to a greater or less extent in a moved or ex- 
cited state. There is a current, smooth, leaping, or 
troubled, moving on with more or less rapidity. There 
is more than excitement ; there is a feeling of pleasure 
in, or aversion to, the object of which we have an idea, 
and which is supposed to gratify, or thwart, the motive 
power of the mind. When the object is contemplated as 
good, or as bringing good, that is as appetible, we are 
drawn towards it, we feel an attachment to it ; there is 
a glow of heart, a pleasurable elevation, and we feel at- 
tracted towards that which interests us. On the other 
hand, when it is regarded as evil, or about to bring evil, 
there is also an excitement, but it is painful excitement, 
chafing and irritating the spirit, and we draw away from 
the object, or we drive it away from us. There is an in- 
clination towards the object in all those emotions which 
contemplate the desirable, such as affection, hope, ex- 
pectation, and a disinclination towards all things that 
frustrate our wishes, in fear, anger, disappointment. 



78 THIRD ELEMENT: EXCITEMENT AND ATTACHMENT. 

It is when it thus bursts out that the affection falls 
under the eye of consciousness. We are not conscious of 
the appetence, as an appetence, of the swaying motive, 
which lies deep down in the soul, as the root does in the 
ground. Just as we do not perceive by the senses the 
attraction of the moon, but notice it as raising the tides, 
so we do not discover the power of a motive till it raises 
a wave of feeling. We become conscious, first, of the 
idea, and along with this, of the excitement arising from 
the attractions and repulsions. We feel in a moved, often 
in an irritated, or agitated, state, and are impelled to ac- 
tion which we may allow or restrain as we will. 

The excitement is produced, in the first instance, by 
the gratification, or disappointment, real or expected, of 
an appetence. But when it has once been enjoyed it 
may come to be desired for its own sake. Some feel as 
if they could not live without excitement. Hence they 
seek out for scenes fitted to produce it. They may 
search for it in a variety of quarters : some in the the- 
atre, some in novel reading, some in the dance, some in 
hunting or traveling, some in the competitions of trade 
or ambition, some by resorting to wine or other bodily 
stimulants. Kept within proper bounds, and when di- 
rected to proper objects, this love of stimulus may be 
allowed ; it adds to our enjoyment and it may dispel 
lassitude, torpor, and ennui, and promote habits of activ- 
ity and enterprise. On the other hand, when directed 
to wrong ends, or when carried to excess, even in cases 
in which the employments are lawful, the taste may be 
very injurious, wasting the time of youth when knowl- 
edge and habits of virtue should be acquired ; and 
when declining life arrives, appearing in an unseemly 
and ridiculous frivolity, or issuing in discontent and rest- 
lessness. 



THEIR NATURE. 79 

The repulsions are as powerful, often as peculiar, as 
the attractions. As men and women have personal af- 
fections and predilections, so they have also prejudices 
and antipathies, often bitter and incurable. They avoid 
certain places, persons, and societies ; they shrink from 
certain pursuits and proposals ; they cherish envy, ma- 
lignity, revenge, because afraid of their pride being hum- 
bled, and their favorite ends being thwarted. Some have 
doubted whether the malignant passions, or the benevo- 
lent, have stirred up the larger amount of activity in our 
world. Even as courage impels some to fight against 
threatened evil, so cowardice prompts others to make 
great exertion to avoid it. If duty has, like the bee, its 
sweets, it also has its stings, and many are thereby kept 
from pursuing it. On the other hand, the hatred of evil 
in a world where sin is so prevalent, and has wrought 
such mischief, has called forth an incalculable amount of 
energy in noble minds, and kept our world from becom- 
ing an offensive and intolerable lazar house. 

The inappetible may be of two sorts. It may be the 
disappointment of a strong impulse, say ambition, or 
love. This is in one sense negative ; it arises from the 
absence of an object, but of an object for which there 
may still be a craving felt to be painful, because it can- 
hot be gratified. But in other cases there may be a 
positive aversion to a certain end or object, to certain 
places, or persons, or animals. These two forms are 
closely related and run into each other. Take revenge : 
a favorite scheme has been interfered with, and we take 
up an antipathy to the person who has thwarted us. 
The sensation is a mixed one. There is gratification in 
indulging the appetence, but the gratification is painful 
as looking to evil and not to good. There is a pleasure 
in wreaking vengeance, but it is counteracted by pain. 



80 THIRD ELEMENT : EXCITEMENT AND ATTACHMENT. 

How different from the gratification of benevolence, 
which is blessed in the exercise, and blessed in the be- 
neficent result. 

We can now understand the nature of that restless- 
ness to which we are all liable, and which some seem to 
labor under perpetually. It arises from a variety of in- 
consistent impulses moving us at the same time, or, more 
frequently, from a succession of alternating hopes and 
disappointments. We see it in the vain man, when both 
praise and abuse are heaped upon him ; in the ambitious 
man, now vaulting high and again thrown back ; in the 
youth waiting the award of the judge in a competition, 
and the lover, now rejoicing in the sunshine, and now 
languishing in the shade. These feelings are promoted 
by a nervous temperament, and almost always lead to 
nervousness. In all cases there are active molecular at- 
tractions and repulsions which raise a distressingly heated 
atmosphere. 

We see how " hope deferred maketh the heart sick." 
The heir feels it when the owner of the property lives so 
long. The adventurer feels it when the long planned 
scheme does not succeed. The maiden feels it oppres- 
sively when the long expected proposal of her lover is 
not made. Why all this ? Because the appetence craves 
without being gratified ; and there arises a discontent 
with what is occurring because it does not bring the ex- 
pected good. There is a rumor of the owner of the 
coveted property dying, followed by his recovery ; the 
prospect of success is darkened by a rising cloud ; the 
wooer calls but goes away without proposing. The con- 
tinuance may breed a settled depression unwholesome as 
a pestilential swamp. When it is seen that the object 
cannot possibly be gained, the heart becomes sickened by 
the desire still clamoring like the appetite of hunger 
when yet there is no food. 



THEIR NATUBE. 81 

We see how Ennui is produced. Happiness, as every- 
one knows, is greatly promoted by every one having a 
competent amount of work in which he is interested ; 
when every waking hour calls forth a motive, affords 
room for a habit to take its course, and exercises an en- 
ergy. But when there is no such labor enjoined or re- 
quired, there come seasons more or less frequent, longer 
or shorter, in which there is no incentive, or, more fre- 
quently, in which there are motives confined like waters 
in a pool from which there is no outlet. The result is 
ennui, which is apt to seize on those who are without a 
profession or any pressing active employment, and which 
is the penalty which idleness has to pay for its indul- 
gence. All persons thus situated may not fall into this 
humor, because they have strong tastes which carry them 
into amateur amusements, such as reading, hunting, 
music, or painting. 1 The person under ennui, while feel- 
ing his misery, is unwilling to be roused out of his som- 
nolence : he has not motive enough to overcome the vis 
inertice. It is a blessed thing for such a man, when some 
unexpected circumstance, it may be a dire calamity, 
comes to startle him like a thunder-clap, to awake him 
from his lethargy, and make him himself again. 

Much the same experience, but with important differ- 
ences, is apt to be realized by old people who have given 
up the active pursuits in which they engaged for so many 
years. For a time they feel the relaxation to be pleas- 
ant. But very soon their habits impel them in their 
old ways, only to make them feel the weakness laid 
upon them. The old farmer, the old merchant, the old 

1 " When I am assailed," says Luther, " with heavy tribulation, I rush 
out among my pigs rather than remain alone by myself. The human 
heart is like a mill-stone in a mill ; when you put wheat under it it turns 
and grinds, and bruises the wheat to flour ; if you put in no wheat then it 
grinds on, but then it is itself it grinds and wears away." 



82 THIRD ELEMENT : EXCITEMENT AND ATTACHMENT. 

lawyer, having given up their business, in the expecta- 
tion of enjoying an evening of peace after a busy day, 
are apt to feel chagrined — if they have not been culti- 
vating tastes which may still be gratified, or if they have 
not heavenly light to irradiate their evening hours with 
the hope of a coming day. 

There are various agencies at work in the ordinary 
experience of old age. There is the constant opposition 
offered to the mental energy by the lethargy of the body, 
especially by the immobility of the brain action, which 
is a necessary concurrent in all mental action. This pro- 
duces other effects. There is a repression of the motives 
and habits, which have been in operation for many long 
years. Then there is the inability to acquire new habits 
and springs of action, owing to the mind being altogether 
preengaged and fixed. The old man is like the ship left 
high and dry upon the beach, when the waters have left 
it. He sits in his chimney corner because not able to 
exert himself, or has no motive to exert himself, and he 
becomes peevish and crabbed when proposals are made 
which he knows he cannot execute. He lets the flow of 
association go on in his mind, and he goes back on the- 
past till it becomes wearisome, and would indulge old 
tastes, till he finds that the objects are rotting ; and he 
cherishes a sense of merit till he is made to see that his 
very righteousnesses are as filthy rags which will not 
keep him comfortable. All that is now occurring pro- 
duces only a momentary interest, flickering like a dying 
candle. The light that is fitted to brighten his counte- 
nance must come not from behind, but in front, opening 
to him a better world. 

As the feeling raised by the idea of the inappetible is 
painful, so we learn to avoid what would excite it. 
There are persons who studiously keep out of the way of 



THEIR NATURE. 83 

every painful scene, who never visit the house of mourn- 
ing, and who turn away from distress of every kind. 
This love of ease, this determination to avoid all that 
would humiliate, produces a character of intense selfish- 
ness. It is one of our highest duties in this world to 
visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, to 
seek out distress in order to relieve it. The Persian 
king gave orders that no one clothed in sackcloth, that 
is, the dress of mourning, should enter his palace. But 
while he could thus shut out those who were sorrowing 
for the dead, he could not shut out death itself ; and no 
better preparation can be made for that event than by 
sympathizing with it in others, in familiarizing ourselves 
with it, and comforting those oppressed with it. 

The excitement of which I am writing is to a large 
extent an organic sensation, which will be considered 
under another head. As such, it follows the laws of 
the organism. In particular, it is apt, after continuing 
for a time, to subside ; the storm is changed into a 
calm, the flow becomes an ebb ; all this from much the 
same causes as give fevers their allotted time, four days, 
or ten days, or fourteen days, for rising and falling ; that 
is, there is first a combination of agencies attracted to a 
point, and then a dissipation of them, as they lose their 
force. Every one has experienced this. On the back of 
the height there is a hollow which is deep in proportion 
to the previous height. It arises not so much from any 
special mental laws as from the wasting of the nervous 
energy, whose concurrence is necessary to emotive action. 
This makes our life, so far as it depends on feeling, to be 
a series of undulations, with rising and falling waves. 

It has to be added, that while the mental excitement 
and the organic affection are closely connected, they are 
not identical. Our emotions, say of grief for the death 



84 THIRD ELEMENT : EXCITEMENT AND ATTACHMENT. 

of a friend, are first in the mind and then they affect 
the nerves. In this chapter we consider the state of 
the conscious soul, and in the next its influence on the 
body. 

SECTION n. 

ACTION AND REACTION OF FEELING. 

There is undoubtedly a law of action and reaction in 
human nature as well as in physical nature. The one 
phenomenon is analogous to the other, but they cannot 
be regarded as the same. We have seen (pp. 11, 12) 
that every power of the mind craves for activity. But 
in order to activity, or rather accompanying activity, 
there must be change. When one faculty has been busy 
for a time, others will be apt to demand their share of 
employment. When the same set of ideas have been 
engrossing the mind it likes to have something new and 
fresh. The merchant, after his day's toils are over, wishes 
music or pleasant reading in the evening. The hard 
student craves for a novel, or for a game of bowls or 
cricket. The pent-up citizen rejoices when he can from 
time to time breathe and think freely on the mountain 
or by the sea. So far we have mental laws. But the 
reaction, though in the mind, proceeds to a large extent 
from organic affections, to be treated of in the next chap- 
ter. When the concurring nervous force is becoming 
spent in the brain, mental actions are performed with 
difficulty, and when it is all expended mind cannot exert 
itself. I have felt so exhausted by mental straining di- 
rected to a point, that I could scarcely count so far as 
five, or name my dearest friends. Whatever be the 
causes, the facts are well known. The waters laid up in 
the reservoir run out, and the machinery will not go till 
a new store collects, supplied by gentle rain or pouring 



NATURE RESTORING ITSELF. 85 

flood. In the subsidence, the soul feels indisposed to ex- 
ertion. The lull after the storm is felt to be a relief. 
Quite as frequently the sensation is one of lassitude, of 
languor, and depression. The vessel has no wind to bear 
it on and it is kept back by its own inertia. After a 
night of somnolence there will be an awaking in the 
morning, and fresh activity, provided always that there 
is any strength of intellectual or motive power. But the 
time of exhaustion may be a time of trial and temptation. 
The courage which was so keen in the time of passion 
has sunk into indifference and apathy, and the man has 
scarcely enough of spirit left to defend or save himself. 
In the season of relaxation, after victory, armies have 
lost all that they gained in the previous fight. In the 
weakness succeeding an active struggle, men and women 
have ceased to resist evil, have yielded to temptation, 
and abandoned virtue as a hopeless acquisition. As it is 
with individuals so is it with communities, with nations. 
After a time of great excitement, religious or political, or 
even mercantile or literary, there is apt to be a revulsion, 
and people are indisposed to exert themselves for any 
high end. But the reaction of public sentiment is a 
complex subject, which will be more expediently con- 
sidered in a later part of this treatise. 



SECTION III. 

NATURE RESTORING ITSELF. 

This is a familiar fact. We see it in the spirits, re- 
covering after a fall. The widow who has just lost her 
husband is overwhelmed with grief, and feels as if she 
could never again experience a moment's joy in this 
world ; and in all this she may be perfectly sincere, 
though the world will not give her credit for it, when it 



86 THIRD ELEMENT : EXCITEMENT AND ATTACHMENT. 

observes what follows. For in a few months, perhaps in 
a few weeks, other feelings rise, perhaps new attachments 
spring up, and she contemplates her loss with nothing 
more than a sober sadness, and could not, if she wished, 
renew the poignancy of her first grief. In what way are 
we to account for this ? It is clear that the explanation, 
if the true one, must take into account those safety valves 
that provide an outlet for crowded feeling, which, when 
it rises to a certain height, has a means of flowing out. 

It is to be accounted for partly by the exhaustion of 
the nervous organism, to which I have so often referred 
as being the issue of excited feeling. This explains how 
the persons fall into a relaxed state after the period of 
agitation. But this cause would not hinder the return 
of the great sorrow again and again, after the prostration 
is over. In order to understand the process, we must 
take along with us two other laws. One is the natural 
shrinking from pain, and therefore from those over- 
whelming bursts which do so agitate and distract the 
mind. Then, secondly, the association of ideas calls in 
a number of other feelings tending to divert the mind. 
The very departed friend comes to be associated with 
ideas different from the loss, and these, if they do not re- 
move the grief, tend to alleviate it, by mixing it with 
other emotions, so that the widow, who in. the first in- 
stance could not speak of her departed husband without 
a burst of sorrow, can now talk of his kindness and of 
his virtues. In matters fitted to awaken feelings of 
shame, the person studiously banishes the humiliating 
thoughts as effectively as possible, and seeks, encourages, 
and cherishes ideas of a different kind, fitted to restore 
the self-esteem. It is astonishing how speedily persons 
with no very acute moral sense will outlive their deeds 
of dishonor, and mingle once more in society with the 
utmost self-complacency and assurance. 



NATURE RESTORING ITSELF. 87 

Let us look at the case of a man who has hitherto sus- 
tained a high business reputation becoming unexpectedly 
bankrupt, or of a woman hitherto of pure character 
committing an act which brings her into disgrace. At 
first the feeling of mortification is intense, and is ren- 
dered more so when there is a sense of guilt. The spirit 
is so wounded that it feels it cannot bear it (Pro v. 
xviii. 14), and the torture must be got rid of at all haz- 
ards. There are means of effecting this. Time brings 
along with it new avocations and new associations of 
ideas, and the painful occurrence is remembered as sel- 
dom as possible. Excuses will present themselves and 
be welcomed : there are others as bad as they are, there 
were palliating circumstances, or the acknowledged faults 
should be lost sight of amidst the many virtues which 
are possessed. Or the person may determine unblush- 
ingly to face the reproach and defy the world, and will 
find grounds for fighting with old friends, or with the 
community generally, and this may be persevered in till 
the spirit is cauterized by the searing process and be- 
comes insensible. In the course of time new companion- 
ships willbe formed, and lines of defense set up to stand 
the assaults of conscience. In the end the guilty man or 
woman may walk unabashed through the world, mortified 
only on rare occasions, when the moral monitor is awak- 
ened for a brief space from its torpor, or when society 
lashes with its scorpion stings. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FOURTH ELEMENT: THE ORGANIC AFFECTION. 

It is of importance to place the discussion as to the or- 
ganic affection at this place rather than in an earlier 
chapter. The mental emotions are not the effect, they 
are rather the cause, of the bodily movements. Some 
physiologists write as if emotion were a sort of reflex act, 
like the sneezing which follows the tickling of the nos- 
trils. This is a very apposite example of Bacon's idolum 
speeus, in which the student of the nerves applies a law 
which he notices in his own province, to an entirely dif- 
ferent class of phenomena. They speak as if, when a 
mother faints on hearing that her son has been drowned, 
that it is simply a reaction of the mind evoked by the 
intelligence from without. But the intelligence of the 
death as reaching the ear is merely the mean — Male- 
branche would call it the occasion — of calling into action 
the mental activity ; the idea of the son as dead, and the 
disappointment of a deep and long cherished affection, 
these constitute the true cause of the bodily effects of 
the tremor and agitation. In all cases the emotion be- 
gins within, in an appetence or affection of some kind, 
and in the idea of something to favor or to thwart it. In 
many cases there is no external occasion to call it forth, 
as when the mother in the midst of the nights awakes, 
thinks of her drowned son and weeps, or when a man 
sitting in his room suddenly recalls a past deed of folly. 



SOME EMPIRICAL LAWS. 89 

and is overwhelmed with regret, which causes his whole 
frame to writhe. 

It is much more difficult to treat of the bodily affec- 
tions produced by the emotions, than of the emotions 
considered as mental acts revealed to consciousness. The 
reason is, that we have now to deal with two very dif- 
ferent sets of agencies, with extended body and sensitive 
mind, and with their mutual action. For the present, it is 
of importance that psychologists should pursue their 
observations with consciousness as agent, and that physi- 
ologists should conduct their experiments with all the 
appliances they can command, each party being under 
obligations not to speculate beyond his own province. 
As they do so, judicious men will rise up«to combine 
the results in a consistent system, in which light will be 
thrown both on mind and body. So far as the emotions 
are concerned, all we can do at present is to enunciate 
and employ a few laws of an empirical character that 
have been ascertained. 

The desirable thing would be to determine what bod- 
ily effect each kind of affection or emotion is fitted to 
produce, what influence is exercised by grief and by joy, 
by fear and by hope, by regret and by complacency. 
This cannot be done very specifically at present, but 
mental science may promote this end by giving a good 
description and classification of the feelings, to which 
physiology can accommodate its researches. At present, 
psychologists are often ignorant of the empirical laws 
which have been discovered by physiologists who have 
studied the brain and nerves, and more frequently physi- 
ologists imagine that all emotion can be explained by 
nervous action, and confound the different departments 
of the mind. 

I. There is a general law as to the soothing or irritat- 



90 FOURTH ELEMENT: THE ORGANIC AFFECTION. 

ing effects of emotion on the body. When the idea con- 
templates the good, that is, the appetible, both the psy- 
chical and the oi-ganic affections are pleasant, less or 
more. This is the case with contentment, cheerfulness, 
hope, and joy. On the other hand, when it regards what 
is supposed to be evil, the sensibility is to a less or greater 
extent disagreeable. It is so with anger, remorse, fear, 
and grief, under all their forms. Generally it may be 
held that a moderate degree of emotion is favorable to 
the health, both of mind and body. It should be ob- 
served, however, of all intense and vehement feeling, 
whether it be painful or pleasant in a moderate degree, 
that it wearies and exhausts the frame and is apt to issue 
in listlessness and apathy. Our feelings are meant to be 
breezes to waft us along on the voyage of life, but we are 
ever to guard against allowing them to rise into gales 
and hurricanes, to overwhelm us in depths from which 
we cannot be extricated. By the causes now indicated 
we can account for the reaction which commonly succeeds 
a period of high excitement, whether among individuals 
or communities — the tide has run its course and the ebb 
sets in. It has not been so frequently observed, though 
it is equally true, that among persons of life and spirit 
there is apt, after a period of lassitude, to be a reawak- 
ening, and a craving for enterprise which searches for a 
channel in which to flow, and will find an outlet. The 
hungry lion will not more certainly go forth in search 
of prey than the man who has any force of character 
will, after a period of relaxation, be impelled to set out 
on new activities. 

Hygiene takes advantage of this law, and will profit 
by it more and more as science advances. The physi- 
cian should, in the first place, seek to put and keep in a 
healthy state those organs of the body whose derange- 



SOME EMPIRICAL LAWS. 91 

ment affects the mind, such as the heart, which tends to 
make us excitable, the stomach, which produces irritation, 
and the liver, which inclines to melancholy. This may 
often be done by appropriate medicines. In healing 
these organs we soothe the temper and prevent the rise 
of other diseases. When children are cross-tempered 
the nurse gives them a dose of medicine. But secondly, 
and more especially, the physician should endeavor to 
raise those feelings which give stimulus to the frame, 
such as hope, which casts sunshine on the landscape and 
stirs up motives which lead to exertion and activity ; and 
take all pains to remove those affections which tend to 
depress and to sink the soul into despondency and inac- 
tivity. The wisest physicians do this at present, being 
led by good sense and common observation, but they will 
do it more regularly and efficiently when they have be- 
fore them a thorough exhibition of the motives which 
stimulate and exhilarate, and those that restrain and re- 
press. In carrying out this method it is necessary that 
they should know not only the bodily constitution and 
habits of the patient, but also his temperament and the 
aims he sets before him in life. 

II. While we cannot at present specify scientifically 
the precise influence exercised on the body by the vari- 
ous kinds of emotion, we can enumerate a few laws, 
chiefly of an empirical character but full of interest and 
importance. 

The emotions through the nerves act particularly on 
the heart and lungs, and thence on the organs of breath- 
ing, the nerves of which spread over the face, which 
may thus reveal the play of feeling. Every sudden emo- 
tion quickens the action of the heart and consequently 
the respiration, which may produce involuntary motions. 
If our organs of respiration and circulation had been dif- 



92 FOURTH ELEMENT: THE ORGANIC AFFECTION. 

ferent our expression would also have been different. 
" Dr. Beaumont had the opportunity of experimenting 
for many months on a person whose stomach was ex- 
posed to inspection by accident, and he states that men- 
tal emotion invariably produced indigestion and disease 
of the lining membrane of the stomach — a sufficient 
demonstration of the direct manner in which the mind 
may disorder the blood." : Certain emotions, such as 
sudden fear, increase the peristaltic action, whereas anx- 
iety and grief diminish it. Sorrow of every kind, sym- 
pathy, and pity act on the bowels. All strong passions 
are apt to make the muscles tremble ; this is especially 
the case with all aggravated forms of fear, with terror 
and rage, but is also so with anger, and even joy. The 
action of the heart is increased by anger. In fear, the 
blood is not transferred with the usual force. Settled 
malice and envy give rise to jaundice, it is said, by caus- 
ing the matter secreted to be reabsorbed into the capil- 
lary blood-vessels of the liver, instead of being carried 
out by the branches of the bile-duct. The idea of the 
ludicrous raises a mental emotion which bursts out in 
laughter; grief finds an outlet in tears. Complacency 
with those we converse with is manifested in smiles. 
We read, in various languages, of lightness of heart, of 
the paleness of fear, of the breathlessness of surprise, of 
the trembling with passion, of bowels of compassion, of 
the jaundiced eye of envy, and all these figures embody 
truths recognized in universal experience. It is a curi- 
ous circumstance that young infants do not shed tears, 
though they utter screams and fall into convulsions. 
These last are the effects of pain, but they do not shed 
tears till they have an emotion, with its idea of the ap- 
petible and inappetible. 

1 Moore on The Power of the Soul over the Body, p. iii. ch. viii. 



SOME EMPIRICAL LAWS. 93 

III. Sir Charles Bell has shown, in the " Anatomy of 
Expression," how close and extensive is the connection of 
the organs that sustain life and the muscular system of 
the face, neck, and chest. The heart and lungs are 
united by nerves, and work in unison. They have no 
feeling when we touch them, yet they are alive to the 
proper stimulus and they suffer from the slightest change 
of position or exertion. They are also affected by the 
changes, and especially the emotions, of the mind. They 
act on there»spiratory organs, which have numerous nerves 
in the throat, windpipe, tongue, lips, and nostrils. There 
is a class of nerves appropriated to " respiration." These 
nerves arise in the same part of the brain. The great 
nerve descends into the chest to be distributed to the 
heart and lungs, and the others extend to the exterior 
muscles of the chest, neck, and face. " Thus the frame 
of the body, constituted for the support of the vital func- 
tions, becomes the instrument of expression ; and an ex- 
tensive class of passions, by influencing the heart, by 
affecting that sensibility which governs the muscles of 
respiration, calls them into operation so that they become 
an undeviatiug mark of certain states or conditions of 
the mind. They are the organs of expression." 

He then shows that emotions by the action of the mus- 
cles chiefly affect "the angles of the mouth and the inner 
extremity of the eyebrow ; and to these points we must 
principally attend in all our observations concerning the 
expression of passion. They are the most movable parts 
of the face ; in them the muscles concentre, and upon the 
changes which they undergo expression is acknowledged 
chiefly to depend. To demonstrate their importance we 
have only to repeat the experiment made by Peter of 
Cortona : to sketch a placid countenance and touch lightly 
with the pencil the angle of the lips and the inner ex- 



94 FOURTH ELEMENT : THE ORGANIC AFFECTION. 

tremity of the eyebrows. By elevating or depressing 
these we shall quickly convey the expression of grief or 
of laughter." 

At this point Darwin takes up the subject in his " Ex- 
pression of the Emotions " : " We have all of us as infants 
repeatedly contracted our orbicular corrugator and pyra- 
midal muscles, in order to protect our eyes while scream- 
ing; our progenitors have done the same during many 
generations ; and though with advancing years we easily 
prevent, when feeling distressed, the utterance of screams, 
we cannot from long habit always prevent a slight con- 
traction of the above-named muscles ; nor indeed do we 
observe the contraction in ourselves, or attempt to stop 
it, if slight. But the pyramidal muscles seem to be less 
under the command of the will than the other related mus- 
cles ; and if they be well developed their contraction 
can be checked only by the antagonistic contraction of the 
central fascise of the frontal muscle. The result which 
necessarily follows, if these fascise contract energetically, 
is the oblique drawing up of the eyebrows, the puckering 
of their inner ends, and the formation of rectangular 
furrows on the middle of the forehead." He goes on to 
say that the depression of the corners of the mouth is ef- 
fected by the depressores anguli oris. " The fibres of 
this muscle diverge downwards, with the upper conver- 
gent ends attached round the angles of the mouth and to 
the lower lip, a little way within the angles." " Through 
steps such as these we can understand how it is that 
as soon as some melancholy thought passes through the 
brain there occurs a just perceptible drawing down of 
the corners of the mouth, or a slight raising up of the 
inner ends of the eyebrows, or both movements combined, 
and immediately afterwards a slight suffusion of tears." 1 

1 Expression of Emotions, ch. vii. 



SOME EMPIRICAL LAWS. 95 

IV. Mr. Darwin, by his own observations, and by the 
answers given to queries which he issued as to the vari- 
ous races of mankind, especially those who have associ- 
ated but little with Europeans, seems to have established 
the following points, some of them, perhaps, only provis- 
ionally and partially. Astonishment is expressed by the 
eyes and mouth being opened wide, and by the eyebrows 
being raised. Shame excites a blush when the color of 
the skin allows it to be visible. When a man is indig- 
nant or defiant he frowns, holds his body and head erect, 
squares his shoulders, and clinches his fists. When con- 
sidering deeply on any subject, or trying to understand 
any puzzle, he is apt to frown and wrinkle the skin be- 
neath the lower eyelids. When in low spirits the cor- 
ners of the mouth are depressed, and the inner corner of 
the eyebrows are raised by that muscle which the French 
call the " grief muscle." The eyebrow in this state be- 
comes slightly oblique, with a little swelling at the inner 
end ; and the forehead is transversely wrinkled in the 
middle part, but not across the whole breadth, as when 
the eyebrows are raised in surprise. When persons are 
in good spirits the eyes sparkle, the skin is a little wrink- 
led round and under them, and the mouth a little drawn 
back at the corners. When a man sneers or snarls at 
another the corner of the upper lip over the canine or 
eye tooth is raised on the side facing the man whom he 
addresses. A clogged or obstinate expression niay often 
be recognized, being chiefly shown by the mouth being 
firmly closed, by a lowering brow, and a slight frown. 
Contempt is expressed by a slight protrusion of the lips 
and by turning up the nose with a slight expiration. 
Disgust is shown by the lower lip being turned down, the 
upper lip slightly raised, with a sudden expiration some- 
thing like incipient vomiting, or like something spit out 



96 FOURTH ELEMENT : THE ORGANIC AFFECTION. 

of the mouth. Laughter may be carried to such an ex- 
treme as to bring tears into the eyes. When a man 
wishes to show that he cannot prevent something, being 
clone, or cannot himself do something, he is apt to shrug 
his shoulders, turn inwards his elbows, extend outwards 
his hands, and open the palms, with the eyebrows raised. 
Children when sulky are disposed to pout, or greatly pro- 
trude the lips. The head is nodded vertically in affirma- 
tion, and shaken laterally in negation. 

V. The expressions have commonly been produced, in 
the first instance, by the emotions of which they are the 
effect, and commonly the sign ; and whenever the like feel- 
ing arises, the expression will follow, by the law of asso- 
ciation. In the first instance, and it may be for a time, 
the action of the emotion had a purpose, it may be to 
protect or ward off danger, or meet opposition, now it is 
continued after the meaning has gone. A man walking 
along the edge of a precipice leans away from it lest he 
fall ; and he will be apt to take the same posture when 
the precipice is so guarded that there is no longer danger. 
The screams of terror may first have been uttered to call 
in assistance, now they come forth when no assistance is 
at hand, or none is needed. The shout on the occasion 
of a happy occurrence may at first have been intended to 
convey the glad tidings to others, now it is the natural 
expression of a crowd when it is gratified. Anger and 
rage in children, and in primitive states of society, agi- 
tated the whole frame and led to blows ; it still rouses 
the body and reddens the countenance, though it does 
not culminate in fighting. These expressions may be- 
come hereditary ; this, however, because they have formed 
certain lines in which nervous energy flows. There are 
acts done, and attitudes assumed, which may have come 
down from a remote ancestry, and telling of primitive 



SOME EMPIRICAL LAWS. 97 

manners. But it should be observed that there is men- 
tal as well as organic action in all this ; in the expression, 
actions were first called forth by emotions of the mind, 
and are now called forth by a like emotion. As Darwin 
expresses it, " whenever the same state of mind is induced, 
however feebly, there is a tendency, through the force of 
habit and association, for the same movements to be per- 
formed." 1 

VI. We see what truth there is in physiognomy. It 
does not appear that the dispositions and character can 
be known by the shape or size of any muscle or bone, say, 
as has been vulgarly supposed, by the lines on the palms 
of the hand, or the form of the nose, or the curlings of 
the ear. But the emotions affect the nerves which leave 
their mark on the face and gait. According to Bell, " In 
all the exhilarating emotions, the eyebrows, eyelids, the 
nostrils, and the angles of the mouth are raised. In the 
depressing passions it is the reverse." Darwin adds, 
" under the influence of the latter the brow is heavy, the 
eyelids, cheeks, mouth, and whole head droop ; the eyes 
are dull, the countenance pallid, and the respiration slow. 
In joy the face expands, in grief it lengthens." There 
are other signs which are natural, and, unless repressed, 
universal. The leaning forward of the body denotes in- 
terest in the person or object. The nodding of the head 
is understood as assent. On the other hand, the turning 
of the body or of the head expresses aversion or denial. 
The frown on the brow indicates displeasure. Fire in 
the eye, color in the cheek, agitation in the frame, with 
the clinched fists, are signs of anger. Blushing on the 
face and neck arise from shame, that is, from a sensitive- 
ness about the opinions of others, particularly as regards 
one's person, and in regard to decency. A suffused eye 

1 Expression of the Emotions, ch. i. 

7 



98 FOURTH ELEMENT: THE ORGANIC AFFECTION. 

is a sign of pity. A softened eye, with a swelling bosom, 
is a mark of love. A stiff, upright head and figure is 
often an indication of pride. Relaxed features axe the 
issue of weariness, inclined to sleep. The drawing up or 
snuffing of the nostrils exhibits disgust, the same as is 
produced by an offensive smell. The smooth counte- 
nance implies contentment, except the person be a hypo- 
crite. Kneeling is an appropriate attitude of submission 
to a superior. The upturned eye is the symbol of a soul 
looking to heaven in adoration. By such causes as these 
there are persons " whose heart is in their face." The 
prevailing passions, say benevolence, or good-nature, or 
malignity, or sourness, or dejection, or sorrow, or timid- 
ity, or self-humiliation, or lust, or haughtiness, produce 
an impression and expression which can be noticed and 
read by the practiced eye. Persons gifted with shrewd- 
ness, and who have mingled much with the world, are 
thus able, with amazing accuracy, and at first sight, as 
if by instinct, but really by lengthened observation, to 
guess at the character or present mental frame of those 
they meet with. 

VII. It should be noticed that while pleasure and pain 
are very different from emotions, yet they may, and often 
do, mingle with each other. I have remarked that the 
emotions looking to the good are pleasant, and the pleas- 
ure intensifies the emotion, say of hope and joy, and we 
enjoy and seek to prolong it. On the other hand, the 
emotions that contemplate the evil are always more or 
less painful, and the pain may mix with and increase the 
affection. We have a vivid picture of bodily pain by Sir 
C. Bell: " The jaws are fixed and the teeth grind; the 
lips are drawn laterally, and the nostrils dilated ; the 
eyes are largely uncovered, and the lips raised ; the face 
is surged with blood, and the veins of the temple and 



SOME EMPIRICAL LAWS. 99 

forehead distended ; the breath being checked, and the 
descent of blood from the head impeded by the agony of 
the chest, the cutaneous muscle of the neck acts strongly, 
and draws down the angles of the mouth. But when 
joined to this the man cries out, the lips are retracted, 
and the mouth open ; and we find the muscles of his body 
rigid, straining, struggling." Now, as all the affections 
that arise from the idea of evil, especially all the malign 
affections, produce pain, we find the sensation mingling 
and acting with the passion, and the result may be a 
terrible struggle, such as we see in Laocoon, and often in 
the wounded or murdered man. The fight with the suf- 
fering often adds intense violence, such as writhing and 
blows, to the proper action of the passion. 

VIII. But bodily effects may be produced not only by 
real, but by imaginary objects. We have seen that every 
emotion implies an idea. This idea is very often of a 
sensible object, that is, of an object made known to us 
by the senses. Now it seems to be pretty well estab- 
lished that there are organs of the brain necessary in 
order to the perception of material objects. Smell, as a 
psychical act, is not in the nostrils, nor hearing in the 
ear, nor touch in the nerves, nor vision in the eye. There 
is need of a cerebral action in order to a conscious sensa- 
tion, and in order to a perception of the objects. It is 
very generally acknowledged that the senses may have a 
common centre of sensation, a sensorium in the brain, or 
more probably, that each sense has a local centre. Phy- 
siologists are not quite agreed as to what these centres 
are. It is enough for our present purpose that there is 
either a general centre, or that there are special centres. 

But this is not the point which it is necessary for us to 
establish. There is a further truth approximately and 
provisionally determined. It is that the organ of the 



100 FOURTH ELEMENT : THE ORGANIC AFFECTION. 

brain necessary to our having a perception of the object 
is also necessary to our reproducing it as a phantasm, in 
memory or imagination. Thus : suppose that there is an 
organ of vision in the thalami optici, or more probably, 
farther up in the cerebrum, this organ is needed not only 
to give us the original figure, say the form of our mother, 
but is needed in order to our being able to call up her 
image and to think of her when she is absent. The same 
remark applies to all the other senses ; we need the audi- 
tory organ to recall a sound, and the organ of taste and. 
smell to recall flavors, and of feeling to image tactual 
impressions, and of the muscular sense to think of ob- 
jects in motion. 1 But we have seen that when ideas are 
of objects appetible or inappetible they stir up emotion. 
We have here a glimpse of the way in which the feel- 
ings work in the brain. The idea which evokes the feel- 
ing, and is its substratum, works in the cerebrum ; and 
the excitement produced, like the original sensation, may 

1 Professor Ferrier, in Functions of the Brain, has been successful in 
showing that there are organs of the brain which are the centres of, or at 
least are somehow concerned with, the sensations and perceptions given 
by the different senses. The organic or visceral sensations are felt in the 
occipital lobes, towards the lower periphery. Smell and taste need the 
subiculum cornu ammonis. Touch is felt in the hippocampal region. Sight 
has an organ in the gyrus angularis. Hearing has its centre in the supe- 
rior temporo-sphenoidal convolution. All these centres are rather in the back 
part of the brain, which seems the organ of sensation. The centres of 
motion seem to be in the frontal regions, which are the organs of intelli- 
gence and will. I think we have evidence that when we are recalling or 
imaging any object originally perceived by the senses we need the concur- 
rence of the corresponding centres of the brain : of the visceral centre be- 
fore we can conceive of an object of appetite ; of the taste and smell cen- 
tres before we can conceive of an odor ; of the centre of touch in order to 
conceive of the feeling objects ; of the centre of seeing in order to our 
conceiving colors and visible forms ; and of the centre of hearing in order 
to our conceiving bodies as sounding. I may refer to an article on Mind 
and Brain, in which I have discussed these subjects, in the Princeton Re- 
view, March, 1878. 



SOME EMPIRICAL LAWS. 101 

be partly mental and partly bodily. The bodily excite- 
ment, often rising to agitation, is very manifest, and 
is seen in nervous movements, in changes of color, in 
paleness and redness of countenance, in blushing and in 
trembling, in laughter and in tears. It is the office of 
psychology to unfold the emotions ; it is the business of 
physiology to trace the bodily affections from the brain 
downwards to the nerves and fibres. 

It is possible that when a sensible object raises emo- 
tion the action proceeds from the cerebral centres of 
perception down upon the motor nerves, and thence upon 
the bodily frame generally. It seems almost certain that 
this is so when the object raising the emotion is not pres- 
ent, and when we have merely an idea of it. The idea, 
let me suppose, is of an appetible object. The mother is 
eagerly expecting the return of a son, after an absence of 
years. The son, at a distance, knows that his mother is 
dying and may expire any instant. The widow is think- 
ing of her lately departed husband. We recall the spot 
in which we saw a dear friend killed. We cannot forget 
the shriek which came from a man in agony. Or, using 
a very different sense organ, we have a remembrance of 
a pool with offensive odor. The murderer has a vivid 
image before him of the murdered man, of his writhing, 
and of his wounds. In many such cases the mental idea 
seems to have much the same effect on the organ of per- 
ception as the very presence of the object would have. 

The idea of an emotional object, that is, of an object 
raising emotion, may become visible in the bodily frame 
and on the countenance. A smile appears on the mother's 
face when she sees her child playing, and there will be a 
tendency to a like smile when she merely imagines him 
to be happy. A sadness will gather and settle on the 
countenance of a father grieving over the loss of a son. 



102 FOURTH ELEMENT: THE ORGANIC AFFECTION. 

Cherished lust will come forth in a bloated countenance. 
You may often discover the nature of the feelings by the 
play upon the features of one who is walking or seated 
in a room without being conscious of any eye being fixed 
upon him. You may often know whether business is pros- 
pering or not by the expression on the merchant's coun- 
tenance. You may discover whether the news conveyed 
by a letter received is good or bad, by the look of the 
reader. 

As with real so with imaginary scenes. We often see 
pleasure or terror expressed on the countenance when 
persons are dreaming. As with night-dreams so with 
day-dreams, the face and the whole frame may be af- 
fected by them. There may be sighs drawn forth, or 
tears shed, or laughter bursting out, by the pictures in a 
novel, or the creations of the imagination. There may 
be marked depression, gendered by the fear of evil. 
Terror, arising from danger, has turned the hair from 
black to white, and Sir H. Holland tells us of a young 
man on whom the same effect was produced simply by 
illusory images. There may be writhings of body, pro- 
duced by the remembrance of sin. 

IX. " I have often remarked," says Burke, " that on 
mimicking the looks and gestures of angry or placid, or 
frightened or daring men, I have involuntarily found my 
mind turned to that passion whose appearance I en- 
deavored to imitate." Here is an important fact, but it 
is not correctly stated ; that which comes first is put last. 
The only effective way of mimicking a passion is to call 
up by the fancy an object or scene fitted to awaken the 
feeling. 

I rather think that sympathetic action is to be ac- 
counted for very much in this way: we put ourselves 
in the position of others, by calling up by the idea the 



SOME EMPIRICAL LAWS. 103 

same feelings, which go out in the same manifestations. 
Tears shed are apt to call forth tears in the beholder, or 
quite as readily in the listener to the tale told which 
makes us realize the position. It is the same with 
laughter, which is apt to be echoed back till the noise 
rings throughout a large assembly. When a company 
as a whole is moved it is difficult for any person to keep 
his composure. An alarm of fire will spread through a 
vast congregation, the greater number of whom are act- 
ually cognizant of no cause of fear. A panic started by 
a few soldiers who believe that they see danger will 
often seize a whole army, the great body of whom know 
no ground for the terror. It is easier for an orator, say 
a preacher, if only he can get up feeling, to move a large 
audience than a thin one. There is a reflection of 
emotion from every person upon every other. We call 
this contagion, but it is contagion produced by people's 
being led to cherish the same feelings producing the 
same outward manifestation. The very contagion of 
disease is made more powerful by persons being afraid 
of, and so dwelling much on, the infection. 

If this be so, then imitation, or at least sympathetic 
imitation, is to be explained in this way : If we have a 
feeling of trust in certain persons, say our neighbors, or 
our friends, or our party, or our associates, or our special 
companions, then we are inclined to act as they act, but 
by our coming to share their feelings, their affections, 
and antipathies. When we have a great admiration 
towards any one for his courage, or his magnanimity, 
we are especially led to copy him. A brave commander, 
by going before, may be able to lead his troops into cer- 
tain death. We have all seen a noble gift, on the part 
of an individual, calling forth the plaudits and the 
liberality of many others. The same principle may 



104 FOURTH ELEMENT : THE ORGANIC AFFECTION. 

overcome the sense of right and lead us to " follow a mul- 
titude to do evil." 

In this way we can so far account for those violent 
convulsions which have been produced sympathetically 
by religious and other forms of excitement. We have 
a melancholy record of these in Hecker's " The Epidem- 
ics of the Middle Ages." Such was the dancing mania 
which spread over so many countries in the fourteenth 
century. We have a number of cases collected in 
Moore's " Power of the Soul over the Body." He men- 
tions the strange delusion that " seized the minds of men 
in Germany, immediately after the effects of the Black 
Death had subsided. The delusion took the form of a 
wild dance, known as that of St. John or St. Vitus. It 
was propagated like a demoniacal epidemic over the whole 
of Germany and the neighboring countries to the north- 
west. The sufferers formed circles, hand in hand, and 
continued dancing for hours together, in wild delirium, 
until they fell to the ground from exhaustion." We 
have instances of the same kind in the convulsionaires 
who appeared in France in the last century. We have 
like examples in the present day in the dancing dervishes 
of the East, in the contortions of the Jumpers, and in the 
prostrations which are encouraged in misguided religious 
revivals. These affections seem to be produced by per- 
sons entering into the feelings of those with whom they 
sympathize, and thus bringing on the like bodily expres- 
sions. They can be subdued, not by reasoning or by 
commands, or even directly by threats, but by a counter 
irritation, that is, an idea raising a very different feeling. 
" The great Boerhaave had a number of patients seized 
with epileptic fits in a hospital from sympathy with a 
person who fell down in convulsions before them. This 
physician was puzzled how to act, for the sympathetic 



SOME EMPIRICAL LAWS. 105 

fits were as violent as those arising from bodily disease ; 
but reflecting that they were produced by an impression 
on the mind, he resolved to eradicate them by a still 
stronger impression, and so directed hot irons to be pre- 
pared and applied to the first person who subsequently 
had a fit : the consequence was that not one was seized 
afterwards." "A French medical practitioner of great 
merit relates that in a convent of nuns one of the fair 
inmates was seized with a strange impulse, and soon the 
whole sisterhood followed her example and mewed reg- 
ularly every day for hours together." This continued 
until " the nuns were informed that a company of sol- 
diers were to surround the convent, and to whip all the 
holy sisterhood with rods, till they promised to mew no 
more." " Cardan relates that in another nunnery a sister 
was impelled to bite her companions, and this disposition 
also spread among the sisterhood ; but, instead of being 
confined to one nunnery, it spread from cloister to clois- 
ter throughout the whole of Europe." 

X. We are here in the heart of a subject which can- 
not be cleared up at present, — the reaction of mind and 
body. If it be true that emotion produces a certain 
bodily state, it is also true that some bodily states tend 
to produce the corresponding feelings. Dr. Braid, in his 
very curious experiments as to hypnotism, found that a 
person put in the attitude of devotion became devout. I 
am not disposed to speak dogmatically about this mys- 
terious phenomenon, but I believe that association of 
ideas has to do with it. The act of kneeling will natu- 
rally suggest the feelings we cherished when we knelt. 
If we take the attitude of striking the idea of fighting 
will be suggested. If the expression of affection, or 
of pity, is assumed, it will call up the feeling associated 
with it. In the very act of bringing a cloud on the brow 
the idea of care will be brought up. 



106 FOURTH ELEMENT: THE ORGANIC AFFECTION. 

XI. When an emotion has an accompanying expres- 
sion it will always crave for that expression. If the 
tendency is repressed by circumstances, or by an act of 
the will, there is produced a restrained and uncomfort- 
able sensation. At times it is distressing when the sense 
of the ludicrous, raised by an awkward occurrence, is kept 
in, as it must often be when we are in a grave company, 
or in the house of God. What a luxury, when the posi- 
tion is changed, to have an opportunity of indulging in 
ringing laughter. How pained are we when grief can- 
not find an outlet. What a relief when it outflows in 
tears. 

XII. The question arises, What effect has the expres- 
sion, or the restraining of it, upon the emotion ? In some 
cases the expression seems to lessen, and in others to in- 
crease, the feeling. In like manner, the repression in 
some circumstances seems to cool the affection, and in 
other cases to warm it. This difference so far depends 
on the nature of the underlying appetence, according as 
it contemplates a good to be desired, or an evil to be 
avoided. If it contemplates the good, the sensation will 
be pleasurable, and will allure us to prolong and renew 
the emotion. If it looks to the evil, the feeling is pain- 
ful, and the recurrence will be avoided. But more de- 
pends on the strength of the affection. The case is like 
that of a wind blowing on a fire : if it is weak it may 
extinguish it, if it is strong it may fan it into a confla- 
gration. To vary our comparison, if the passion has not 
fixed itself it may be overturned ; if it is rooted the 
storm may only make its roots strike deeper into the 
heart ; if it is feeble its waters will be expended in the 
outflow ; if it is powerful then it will bear down all op- 
position, and flow more violently than before. In the 
one case the repression will put out the flame, and in the 



SOME EMPIRICAL LAWS. 107 

other the fire will burn in a smoldering state, and be 
ready to burst out. 

XIII. Our physiological psychologists, especially Her- 
bert Spencer, are forever using language which seems to 
imply that emotions are mere nervous actions excited by 
disturbances or " shocks," and flowing out either in dif- 
fused or in restricted channels. By all means let them 
examine the nature and laws of the nerves, and they 
may enunciate them less vaguely and more scientifically 
than they have yet been able to do. But even when 
they have accomplished this they will not thereby have 
come to the conscious elements, the ideas and attach- 
ments, which are the essential properties of emotion as 
we experience it. The fear of bankruptcy is one thing, 
and the nervous agitation which accompanies it is another 
thing. They may act and react on each other ; but still 
they have and keep their separate properties, the one set 
made known by consciousness and the other by the senses. 
The remembrance on the part of a mother of a child 
lately deceased may liberate forces, which will flow in 
their accustomed channels of tears and agitations, as they 
did when the misfortune happened; but the first grief 
and the second grief are both mental. When the mother 
thinks of that son, of his affection for her, and of his in- 
teresting ways, always with the conviction that she shall 
see him no more, this is not a product of the nervous 
ebullition but rather its cause, in truth its concause. We 
can account for all this flow of idea and feeling by the 
association of ideas. The burst of nervous force does not 
constitute the emotion, but is its result and expression. 

I defy any man to explain or even describe what we 
experience without bringing in the mental element. I 
quote the summary given by Spencer of his views : 2 

1 Psychology, part VIII. 501. 



108 FOURTH ELEMENT : THE ORGANIC AFFECTION. 

"Every feeling has for its primary concomitant a diffused 
nervous discharge which excites the muscles at large, in- 
cluding those that move the vital organs, in a degree pro- 
portionate to the strength of the feeling." "A secondary 
concomitant of feeling in general, as it rises in intensity, 
is an excitement by the diffused discharge first of the 
small muscles attached to easily moved parts, such as the 
face, afterwards of more numerous and larger muscles 
moving heavier parts, and eventually of the whole body." 
" Passing from the diffused to the restricted discharges, 
there has been established in the course of evolution a 
connection between the nervous plexuses in which any 
feeling is localized and the sets of muscles habitually 
brought into play for the satisfaction of the feeling. 
Whence it happens that the rise of this feeling shows it- 
self by a partial contraction of these muscles, causing 
those external appearances called the natural language of 
the feeling" According to this showing the feeling (I 
have put it in Italics) is the primary element and the 
others concomitants. 

There is no propriety in calling the nervous affection 
a correlate of the emotion, or representing the two, after 
the fashion of the school, as the sides of one thing. They 
are two things, each with its properties, but acting and 
reacting on each other, and both should have a place in 
a full account of the phenomenon. 

But instead of pursuing these general observations at 
this place, I postpone the further consideration of the 
organic effects to the next book, where I will place them 
under the heads of the several emotions as I classify 
them. 



BOOK SECOND. 

CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION OF 
THE EMOTIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

DIVISION OF THE EMOTIONS. 

The emotions are so numerous that it is necessary to 
classify them. This is by no means an easy work ; still 
a map may be drawn to indicate the boundaries and the 
several provinces. Our careful survey, with an analysis, 
will enable us to accomplish this. 

There is, as we have seen, an idea involved in all emo- 
tion. Let us fix on this as the ground of the distribu- 
tion. Our divisions and subdivisions will be determined 
and given by the nature of the objects of which we have 
an idea. 

The circumstance that in all feeling we have an idea 
of objects as appetible or inappetible furnishes a 
line which divides our emotional nature, like the human 
body, into two parallel and symmetrical sides. And here 
it may be proper to state that instead of the somewhat 
technical phrases " appetible " and " inappetible " we 
may often employ the words "good" and "evil." It must 
be distinctly understood, however, that in doing so we do 
not mean to designate by the terms anything morally 
good or the opposite. The appetible, which we call the 
good because our nature clings to it, may in fact be mor- 
ally evil, and what we turn away from as inappetible 
may be morally good. Using the phrases in the sense 
now explained, we find that to every emotion contem- 
plating the good there is a corresponding emotion con- 



112 DIVISION OF THE EMOTIONS. 

templating the evil. These have been called by Hartley 
the Grateful and the Ungrateful. Thus, if there be hope 
arising from the idea of an object as about to bring hap- 
piness, there is also fear springing from the apprehension 
of an object as likely to be followed by pain. If there 
be joy derived from the possession of good, there is like- 
wise sorrow from the presence of ill. Every feeling 
looking to the light has thus a shadow arising from the 
obstruction of the light. These constitute the attrac- 
tions and repulsions, the centripetal and centrifugal 
forces which keep the feelings in motion in their spheres 
in our emotional system, which is more wonderful than 
the planetary one. 

But this dichotomy does not so distribute the emotions 
as to enable us to discover the peculiarities of each. It 
is like the division in natural history into the two sexes, 
separating the things which are most intimately con- 
nected in their nature and which ought to be viewed in 
their mutual relation. So we must look out for some 
other ground or grounds of classification. Let us con- 
sider the idea as directed to animate or to inanimate 
objects, say on the one hand to our fellow-men or the 
lower animals, and on the other hand to objects of 
nature, or of art, supposed to be beautiful, picturesque, 
ludicrous, sublime, or the opposite. This gives another 
bifid cleavage of a convenient kind. 

Another distinction will require to be attended to. It 
is acknowledged by all that feelings are called forth 
when we contemplate the good and evil as bearing on 
ourselves. These, being self-regarding, may be called 
Egoistic. But I have been maintaining in this work 
that man has a native affection which leads him to feel 
an interest in his fellow-men, and is capable of being 
moved by whatever affects them. These affections have 



DIVISION OF THE EMOTIONS. 113 

been called altruistic. We are naturally inclined to 
wish that others may possess whatever we regard as ap- 
petible, and that they may be preserved from all that we 
regard as evil. This is the kindliness towards a brother 
man which will flow out like a fountain unless it is re- 
strained by selfishness, and which we should seek to 
have so elevated and sanctified that it may become the 
grace of benevolence, leading us to do unto others even 
as we would that they should do unto us. Nor should 
it be forgotten that among others we should give the 
highest place to God as our great benefactor and as 
possessed of perfect excellence. 

But these dividing lines do not distribute the whole 
wide province into sufficiently minute and specific fields. 
So we may further consider the ideas as directed to the 
past, the present, or the future ; this gives what Dr. 
Thomas Brown calls the Retrospective, Immediate, 
and Prospective emotions. 

These separations will analyze the emotions for us as 
the prism does the light. There is a difficulty in finding 
phrases to express the various kinds, shades, and degrees 
of feeling. But there will be none in spreading out the 
components of any given emotion and arranging them 
in their orders. The divisions in fixing on the differ- 
entia of the class will always enable us to give a good 
definition of any emotion. Thus, " fear is the emotion 
(or prospective emotion) arising when we have an idea 
of evil about to come upon us." 

In now proceeding to give an analysis and description 
of the various classes of emotions, I wish to be under- 
stood that I profess to treat chiefly of the mental, which 
is indeed the main, the essential element. The grand 
defect of the account given of the emotions in the present 
day, by the physiological psychologists, is that they dwell 



114 DIVISION OF THE EMOTIONS. 

exclusively on the organic affections and leave upon us 
the impression that these constitute the feelings, and 
have overlooked the more important characteristics of 
this department of our nature. While they give us 
many valuable physiological phenomena which so far ac- 
count for the rise of the feelings, or which are the prod- 
uct of the feelings, and therefore their expression and 
their sign, they utterly fail to bring us into immediate 
contact with the emotions themselves, as these are ex- 
perienced by us, and fall under the eye of consciousness, 
and as they influence the conduct and sway the destiny 
of mankind. 

But while I regard the emotions as psychical and not 
physical, I have not overlooked the organic products. 
In the chapter that follows this I give some account of 
the influence exercised on the body by the feelings of the 
mind. In doing so I make free use of the careful ob- 
servations of Sir Charles Bell, and of Darwin, and the 
more popular descriptions given by some others, such as 
Cogan on " The Passions." 

I have not been able to give an account of the bodily 
effects of all the various classes of emotions. In partic- 
ular I have found a difficulty in finding the signs of the 
feelings contemplating the good. I rather think that 
these do not leave so distinct a mark on the countenance, 
and on the frame generally, as the affections which look 
to the evil. The former class, especially the benign 
affections, produce a pleasant sensation, and work in 
harmony with our organism, and the only marks of them 
are a healthy body and a happy expression, which can be 
observed by all but can scarcely be described. The 
other class, especially the malign affections, are always 
so far painful, and produce deranging effects which phys- 
iology should observe. 



CHAPTER II. 

EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 
SECTION I. 

RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 

These arise from the contemplation of good or evil in 
the past, and this either to ourselves or others. They 
are the feelings gendered by the ideas brought up directly 
or indirectly by the memory. 

Sele-Satisfaction or Regret is the general form of 
this class of emotions which, however, may appear in sev- 
eral modes, and may differ in intensity. 

Complacency or Displicency. Here we do not look 
very minutely or searchingly into special deeds. Upon 
the whole, we are satisfied with the past, with what we 
have done, and with its results. Or we are not pleased 
with what we have accomplished, with our conduct, our 
success, or the position we have reached. These senti- 
ments may be for good or for evil. The former, if it 
does not gender Self -Righteousness, which is a sin, may 
take the form of Self-Esteem, to sustain us and keep us 
from doing an unworthy deed. The latter, if a sense of 
sin, may lead to Humility, which, however, is a grace, 
and not a mere feeling ; but, if directed exclusively to the 
dark side of our experience, may become a Self-Dissatis- 
faction, which hinders courageous action. 

Self- Congratulation or Self -Reproach. It may be a 
passing sentiment of self-approval, because we have done 



116 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

the brave deed, or offered the smart remark that we did, 
or it may be a momentary dissatisfaction with ourselves, 
because we were so thoughtless, so foolish, or because we 
neglected a precious opportunity of adding to our wealth, 
or influence, or of doing and receiving good. It may be 
a habitual dwelling on our own supposed gocd deeds, 
generating Self-Sufficiency, which may be inoffensive .(ex- 
cept to ourselves) if we do not boast of our superiority 
to others, but very offensive when it leads us to deny the 
merits, or grieve at the success, of others. Or it may be 
a habitual Self-Depreciation, caused by the persons brood- 
ing forever on their mistakes, and looking as if they were 
making an apology for themselves. It may rise to a feel- 
ing of Self- Satisfaction and Self- Adulation, by thinking 
of our achievements, of our abilities, of our courage, or 
superiority to others. Or it may sink into a spirit of 
Self- Accusation or Self- Chiding, which chafes the spirit 
and prostrates the energies. 

The feeling varies according to the nature of the good 
of evil contemplated. It is a curious circumstance that 
every one seems to have something of which he is apt to 
be vain ; it looks as if no one could live comfortably with- 
out some supposed excellence. It may be his talents, his 
shrewdness, his tact, his eminence in some particular 
branch of study or trade or trick, or it may be simply 
his personal appearance, his manners, his dress, his equi- 
page, his agility in walking, in dancing, or riding. If he 
fails in this the feeling engendered is Mortification. If 
he is shorn of everything of which he used to be proud, 
the disappointment may sink deep into the heart, and 
the habitual mood is that of emptiness, relieved only by 
a gnawing at the vitals, and going on towards Bitterness, 
and a Timon-like hatred of women as women, or of men 
as men. The sentiment of regret may have a beneficial 



RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 117 

tendency, or the opposite, according as it is used or is 
abused. On the one hand, it may rebuke and humble us, 
and so lead us to avoid past mistakes and pursue a wiser 
course for the future. On the other hand, it may ferment 
and sour into vinegar, and become Chagrin. Disap- 
pointed lovers, authors, artists, politicians, and specula- 
tors are apt to fall into this humor. If they are young 
they may be able to pass through this chill, and yet re- 
cover their hope and activity. But when- the grand cli- 
macteric of life has been reached, and the animal spirits 
have been drunk up by repeated disappointments, the 
man may be tempted to give up all effort, and abandon 
himself to a satisfied or dissatisfied helplessness, accom- 
panied with a bitterness against individuals, or the world 
at large, going out probably in spiteful remarks. We 
must all have met with disappointed men or disappointed 
maidens yielding to this feeling; still retaining a genuine 
benevolence in the depths of their hearts, but maintain- 
ing an attitude of suspicion even of proffered kindness, 
and shrinking from every proposal to fight the battle of 
life anew, after having failed. Of all people, I have 
found these to be the most difficult to gain ; no sunshine 
will thaw the eternal snows upon these high and unap- 
proachable mountain-tops. 

The contemplation of the past may communicate pleas- 
ures. How delightful, with a brother, or sister, or old 
acquaintance, to revive and, as it were, live over again 
the scenes of our childhood and youth ; in imagination to 
revisit old spots, and to converse with old acquaintances, 
it may be about old friends, now gone from this world. 
The eye gives a color to distant objects, makes mountains 
blue which are not blue in themselves, and clouds purple 
and gold which, if we were in them, would be felt as dull 
and dripping mist ; so the imagination, especially when 



118 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

we are in a good humor, gives a rich color to the scenes 
of the past which in themselves were tame or irksome 
or troubled. In particular, suffering, unpleasant in the 
prospect and when present, may become pleasant in the 
remembrance, as we think of trials through which we 
have passed, and dangers overcome, and victories gained 
in hard fights. Emotions for which we have not special 
names may thus be gendered by the contemplation of 
the past, and may be called the Emotions of Pleasant 
Memories. 

It is proper that we should look on the past, for it is 
from the experience of the past, both from our success 
and our failures, that we are to gather lessons for the fut- 
ure. But it is foolish to dwell forever on past joys, past 
sorrows, or past sins. Some would extract a continued 
and perpetual delight from contemplating the past. But 
as we do so the flavor will be found to have lost its 
power, the sweetness to have become insipid while we 
roll it as a sweet morsel under our tongue. Instead of 
sucking, on when we have drawn out the moisture, we 
had better throw away the rind and go forth to seek 
other and fresh objects of interest. As to our sufferings, 
we need not look back forever on the darkness; and we 
are especially to be on our guard against cherishing a 
perpetual malignity towards those who are supposed to 
have inflicted them. As to our sins, our first and im- 
perative duty is to have them blotted out, and our second 
to remember them only so far as to keep us humble and 
watchful ; any further mastication may only distract and 
sink us, or perhaps even ferment the old passions by call- 
ing up the tempting objects anew and anew. 

Self-Approbation or Self - Condemnation, in which we 
contemplate our past conduct as being commendable or 
faulty. This may be a mere passing ebullition of Self- 



RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 119 

Grratulation, that we have accomplished some feat, or of 
Self- Humiliation, because we have fallen into some im- 
prudence. Or it may become a habitual feeling of Self- 
Satisfaction and Self-Adulation, in which we are ever 
thinking of our imagined virtues, and, if of a communi- 
cative temper, ever speaking of them, — more, perhaps, 
to our own gratification than that of others, who would 
rather hear their own praises proclaimed. Or it may, as 
it is indulged in, become a constant complaint and a Re- 
pining, wasting the energy which might be devoted to a 
good purpose. 

Moral Approbation and Disapprobation. Here 
a peculiar and very powerful and keen element is intro- 
duced ; it is the power of conscience. This I cannot 
treat of in the present work ; I refer to it simply as hav- 
ing an Appetence, which, when gratified or frustrated, 
raises an emotion. When we can look upon a certain 
conduct of ours as being right, we have a feeling of Self- 
Approval which may soothe or cheer us, provided it does 
not become a sense of merit which leads us to justify 
ourselves before God. On the other hand, when we do 
that which is morally evil ; when we cherish a licen- 
tious, malignant, or unholy feeling, or do a deed con- 
demned by the moral law, the inward judge condemns 
and proceeds to punish. 

There may be the Testimony of a Good Conscience. 
This may be a source of comfort to some, of unspeakable 
comfort which bears them up under calumny and perse- 
cution. When an innocent man is charged with guilt, 
his main support must arise from the assui'ance that he 
has not done the deed charged, or that the deed, as he 
is ready to maintain, is not evil. He specially needs this 
when public opinion is against him, when enemies are 
stirred up to malign him, and his very friends believe 
him to be guilty and abandon him. 



120 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

Remorse. I fear that in the great body of mankind 
the conscience is in a slumbering state, not dead but dor- 
mant. There is a secret feeling that all is not right, and 
men are afraid to look into the state of the heart lest 
dark disclosures should be made ; just as the murderer 
would visit any spot on this world's surface rather than 
that at which the deed was committed, just as the crimi- 
nal would avoid the bar of the judge, so would the sinner 
avoid all those thoughts that would remind him of his 
sin. But there is a power in conscience which will com- 
pel us, in spite of all repression, to notice the neglects of 
duty of which we are guilty from day to day. The re- 
proaches, though individually transient, do yet, by their 
recurrence, exercise a powerful influence, — they resem- 
ble those noxious ephemera which make up in number 
what they want in strength ; and while the individual 
perishes the genus survives. People are to a large ex- 
tent unconscious of it, and if the charge were made upon 
them they would repel it ; but I believe a large portion of 
human dissatisfaction springs from these constantly rising 
and suppressed accusations, which have much the same 
influence on our peace as a diseased nervous system or 
deranged digestive organs. And, in spite of all efforts 
to check them, there will be times when convulsive as- 
saults of conscience will break in upon the satisfaction 
of the most self-satisfied, and start " like a guilty thing 
upon a fearful summons." Man's peace is in this respect 
like the sultry heat of a summer's day, close and disa- 
greeable at the time, and ever liable to be broken in 
upon by thunders and lightnings. 

Among the Retrospective emotions are those which 
arise from the idea of good or evil supposed to have been 
inflicted by our fellow-men. I am not sure that we have 
expressions in our language to designate all these feelings 
with their boundary lines and shades of difference. 



EETEOSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 121 

Benign ancy, Thankfulness, Gratitude. The feeling 
may be little more than a mereTrvely interest in those 
who have shown some interest in us, or bestowed a favor, 
or done us a good service. In such cases it is a mere 
complacency leading us to delight in the society of those 
who have been kind to us. But it may rise to a thank- 
ful and grateful spirit. It should be noticed that grat- 
itude in its highest forms is an exercise of love which 
implies well-wishing or benevolence, and is more than 
emotion, — it implies an act of the will, and is a virtue 
or grace of a high order. 

Anger, Irritation, Temper, Indignation. The pas- 
sions falling under this head arise from the idea of ill 
usage received. When the appetence is feeble, or the 
offense a small one, an annoyance is given which pro- 
duces an irritation like the bite of a mosquito. These 
disturbances may come like gnats, in streams or swarms, 
and produce temper ever liable to be ruffled by neigh- 
bors, by members of our families, or those we meet with 
in the business and society of the world. Very often 
the offenses which raise the keenest feeling may seem 
very small to mankind generally, but they have wounded 
the individual in the tenderest part, — his sense of honor 
or his ruling spring 'of action, and his passion boils ; an 
attack is made, or a challenge is sent. We call the emo- 
tion indignation, when the feeling is of a lofty kind, stirred 
up by baseness or injustice. An indignation against 
evil is an element in all truly noble character. A com- 
placency towards sin, with a constant apology for it, or 
palliation of it, or excusing it, is a weakness, or rather 
it is an iniquity, and may make us partakers of the of- 
fense. 

Rage, Wrath, Malignancy, Resentment, Vengeance, 
Vmolictiveness. We may be angry and sin not ; but this 



122 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

disposition may become sinful, and this in the highest 
degree. It is so when it is excessive, when it is rage, and 
makes us lose control of ourselves. It is so, and may 
become a vice, when it leads us to wish evil to others. 
It is wrath when it is deep, long-continued, and unfor- 
giving. It is malevolence or malignancy when it leads 
us to wish evil to those who have offended us. It is re- 
sentment when it prompts us to meet and repay evil by 
evil. It is vengeance when it impels us to crush those 
who have injured us. It is vindictiveness when it is seek- 
ing out ingeniously and laboriously means and instru- 
ments to give pain to those who have thwarted us. Al- 
ready sin has entered : we have crossed the line that 
separates vice from virtue, and are taking upon ourselves 
one of the prerogatives of God, who claims " Vengeance 
is mine, I will repay." 

As anger arises from an idea of evil having been inflicted or 
threatened, the attitudes taken are those we would assume to ward off 
the evil. ' ' The corporeal system immediately assumes attitudes and 
appearances calculated to inspire the offender with terror, and pre- 
paratory to the infliction of the chastisement he is supposed to have 
deserved. The countenance reddens, the eyes flash indignant fire, 
and the aspect speaks horror; muscular strength is abundantly in- 
creased, and powers of exertion are acquired unknown to cooler mo- 
ments." (Cogan, c. ii. class I.) " Under moderate anger the ac- 
tion of the heart is a little increased, the color heightened, and the 
eyes become bright. The respiration is likewise a little hurried; and 
as all the muscles serving for this purpose act in association, the 
wings of the nostrils are somewhat raised to allow of a free draught 
of air ; and this is a highly characteristic sign of indignation. The 
mouth is commonly compressed, and there is almost always a frown 
on the brow. Instead of the frantic gestures of extreme rage, an in- 
dignant man unconsciously throws himself into an attitude ready for 
attacking or striking his enemy, whom he will, perhaps, scan from 
head to foot in defiance. He carries his head erect, with his chest 
well expanded and the feet planted firmly on the ground. He holds 
his arms in various positions, with one or both elbows squared, or 



IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS. 123 

with arms rigidly suspended by his sides. With Europeans the fists 
are commonly clinched." (Darwin, c. x.) 

"When the blast of war blows in our ears, 
Then imitate the action of the tiger; 
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, 



Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; 

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, 
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit 
To his full height." 

Shakespeare, Henry V. 

" In rage the features are unsteady; the eyeballs are seen largely; 
they roll and are inflamed. The front is alternately knit and raised 
in furrows by the motion of the eyebrows, the nostrils are inflated 
to the utmost. The lips are swelled, and, being drawn by the mus- 
cles, open the corners of the mouth. The whole visage is sometimes 
pale, sometimes turgid, dark, and almost livid ; the words are de- 
livered strongly through the fixed teeth." (Bell, Essay vii.) 

" Under rage the action of the heart is much accelerated, or it may 
be much disturbed. The face reddens or it becomes purple from 
the impeded return of the blood, or may turn deadly pale. The 
respiration is labored, the chest heaves, and the dilated nostrils 
quiver. The whole body often trembles. The voice is affected. 
The teeth are clinched or ground together, and the muscular sys- 
tem is commonly stimulated to violent, almost frantic, action. But 
the gestures of a man in this state usually differ from the purpose- 
less writhings and struggles of one suffering from an agony of pain; 
for they represent more or less plainly the act of striking or fighting 
with an enemy." (Darwin, c. iii.) 



SECTION II. 

IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS. 

Joy and Sorrow. These arise from the contempla- 
tion of a good" or evil possessed. The emotions are in- 
tensified when the good has been attained by labor, or by 
a contest with evil. The good and evil will be as the 
appetences, original or acquired, and the consequent feel- 
ings may have a like diversity. They may possibly con- 



124 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. . 

sist of a mere sensation, pleasant or unpleasant, and the 
feeling in this case scarcely rises to the dignity of an 
emotion. But being intellectualized it may lead on to 
an idea which generates an emotion, say that of beauty. 
" Grief," says Cogan, " is sometimes considered as sy- 
nonymous with sorrow. At other times it expresses more 
silent, deep, and painful affections ; such as are inspired 
by domestic calamities; particularly by the loss of friends 
and relatives, or by the distress, either of body or mind, 
experienced by those whom we love and value." The ex- 
tent of the feeling depends in all cases on the strength of 
the appetence, and on the degree to which it is gratified 
or thwarted. The phrases, joyful and sorrowful, may be 
applied to all the feelings falling under the head of the 
immediate. Let us follow them from their weaker to 
their stronger forms. 

" In joy the eyebrow is raised moderately but without any angu- 
larity, the forehead is smooth, the eye full, lively, and sparkling, 
the nostril is moderately inflated, and a smile is on the lips. In all 
the exhilarating emotions, the eyelid, the nostril, and the angle of 
the mouth are raised. In the depressing passions it is the reverse. 
For example, in discontent, the brow is clouded, the nose is pecul- 
iarly arched, and the angle of the mouth drawn in." (Bell, Essay 
vii.) " Laura Bridgman from her blindness and deafness could not 
have acquired any expression through imitation, yet when a letter 
from a beloved friend was communicated to her by gesture language, 
she laughed and clapped her hands, and the color mounted to her 
cheeks. On other occasions she has been seen to stamp for joy." 
(Darwin, c. viii.) " Joy quickens the circulation of the blood, and in 
its first impulse it frequently excites violent palpitations of the heart. 
It renders the eyes peculiarly lively and animated, and sometimes, 
when the mind has been previously in a state of anxious fear, it 
stimulates the lachrymal gland to the secretion of tears, accompa- 
nied with redness and a sensation of warmth in the countenance." 
" Unusual vivacity in the eyes and smiles upon the countenance are 
accompanied by joyful acclamations, clapping of hands, and va- 
rious other lively gestures. Where the. .mind is strongly agitated, 



IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS. 125 

and under no restraint from a sense of decorum or solicitude for 
character, loud laughter, jumping, dancing, and the most wild and 
extravagant gestures indicate the frolicksomeness of the heart." 
(Cogan.) Darwin (c. iii.) quotes a case reported by Crichton Browne: 
" A young man of strongly nervous temperament, on hearing by a 
telegram that a fortune had been bequeathed him, first became pale, 
then exhilarated, but soon in the highest spirits, but flushed and 
very restless. He then took a walk with a friend for the sake of 
tranquillizing himself, but returned staggering in his gait, uproar- 
iously laughing, yet irritable in temper, incessantly talking, and 
singing loudly in the public streets." " He then slept heavily, and 
on awaking was well, except that he suffered from headache, nausea, 
and prostration of strength." 

In sorrow or grief the symptoms are " violent agitations and rest- 
less positions of the body, extension of the arms, clapping of the 
hands, beating the breast, tearing the hair, loud sobs and sighs." 
" Sometimes a flood of tears relieves these pathognomonic symptoms. 
Universal lassitude and a sense of debility succeed, with deep dejec- 
tion of countenance, and languor in the eyes, which seem to look 
around and solicit in vain for assistance and relief." (Cogan, c. ii. 
class I.) " In fear or in grief the movements of the nostrils, the un- 
controllable tremor of the lips, the convulsions of the neck and chest, 
and the audible sobbing, prove that the influence of the mind ex- 
tends over the organs of respiration, so that the difference is slight 
between the action of the frame in a paroxysm of the passions and in 
the agony of a drowning man." (Bell, Essay viii.) The same author 
describes the overwhelming influence of grief on woman. " The ob- 
ject in her mind has absorbed all the powers of the frame, the body 
is no more regarded, the spirits have left it, it reclines, and the limbs 
gravitate, they are nerveless and relaxed, and she scarcely breathes ; 
but why comes at intervals the long-drawn sigh ? why are the neck 
and throat convulsed ? what causes the swelling and quivering of the 
lips, and the deadly paleness of the face ? or why is the hand so pale 
and earthly cold? and why, at intervals, as the agony returns, does 
the convulsion spread over the frame like a paroxysm of suffoca- 
tion?" (Essay iii.) Darwin (c. vii.) describes the grief of a young 
woman from Nagpore, nursing her baby who was at the point of 
death. His reporter " saw the eyebrows raised at the inner corners, 
the eyelids drooping, the forehead wrinkled in the middle, the mouth 
slightly open, with the corners much depressed. He then came from 
behind a screen of plants and spoke to the poor woman, who started, 



126 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

burst into a bitter flood of tears, and besought him to cure ber baby," 
Tbe same autbor tells (c. vii.) that wben the suffering is somewhat 
mitigated, yet prolonged, they no longer wish for action, but remain 
motionless and passive, or may occasionally rock themselves to and 
fro. The circulation becomes languid, the face pale, the muscles 
flaccid, the eyelids droop, the head hangs on the contracted chest, 
the lips, cheeks, and lower jaw all sink downward from their own 
weight. Hence all the features are lengthened, and the face of a 
person who hears bad news is said to fall." 

As weeping is an especial expression of grief, this may be the 
proper place for the physiological account of it. " The lachrymal 
glands are the first to be affected; then the eyelids, and finally the 
whole converging muscles of the cheeks." The lips are drawn aside 
from their being forcibly retracted by the superior influence of their 
antagonist muscles, and the angle of the mouth (triangularis oris) is 
depressed. " The cheeks are thus drawn between two adverse pow- 
ers: the muscles which surround the eyelids, and that which de- 
presses the lower lip." " The diaphragm is spasmodically and 
irregularly affected, the chest and throat are influenced, the breath- 
ing is cut by sobbing, and the expiration is slow, with a melancholy 
note. In the violence of weeping, accompanied with lamentation, 
the face is flushed, or rather suffused by stagnant blood, and the 
veins of the forehead are distended." (Bell, Essay vi.) The mus- 
cles round the eyes are strongly contracted during screaming, loud 
laughter, and analogous acts. 

Content and Discontent, or, to use phrases of much the 
same meaning, Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction. The 
prevailing appetences have had enough of gratification to 
soothe them, but not, it may be, to excite them. A 
great portion of a healthy and happy man's life may be 
spent in this state, neither much exalted nor much de- 
pressed. On the other hand, there may be dissatisfac- 
tion, general or occasional, arising from affections being 
disturbed in a small way more or less frequently, by an- 
noyances of various kinds, by ill health, by the anxieties 
of business, domestic differences, or the rivalries of rank. 
It is apt to manifest itself in a discontent painted on the 



IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS. 127 

countenance, in a depression of the bodily frame, or in 
a habitual restlessness or occasional irritation of manner. 
The feeling is apt to settle down into a state of Crood or 
Bad Humor. 

Gladness and Depression. When these are prolonged 
and become continuous, they constitute Cheerfulness and 
Dejection. These are merely deeper manifestations of 
those last" considered. The appetences are stronger, or 
they are steadily or more fully gratified. The one feel- 
ing may be that of a man who has a happy home, or a 
pleasant social circle, who likes his work, and whose busi- 
ness is prospering. The counterpart may be the temper 
of one who is in ill health, who has domestic unhappi- 
ness, who has quarreled with the circle in which he 
moves, whose business does not suit his taste, or is con- 
tinually going wrong. It should be noticed that feelings 
belonging to other divisions are apt to mingle with those 
under consideration, such as pride, regrets as to the past, 
hopes and fears as to the future. These feelings, ac- 
cording as they dwell on the good or the evil, are often 
called Grood and Bad Spirits, and may promote or injure 
the health. 

Rapture and 3Ielancholy . These are the highest forms 
of joy and the lowest forms of sorrow. They arise when 
the good and evil are supposed to be very great, and touch 
the deepest affections of our nature. There is the ecstacy 
of the lover when his or her love is reciprocated, of the 
soldier when he has gained a decisive victory, of the sci- 
entific investigator when the long looked-for discovery 
bursts upon his view, of the saint when he has the beatific 
vision. There is the prostration of spirit which sinks 
man and woman, when every effort to secure their favor- 
ite ends has failed. Old men are specially apt to feel in 
this way when they lose the reputation, the honor, the 



128 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

fortune which they had passed a life-time in earning, and 
feel that they cannot start anew. We have striking in- 
stances in the poet Beattie and in Edmund Burke, when 
they lost promising sons on whom their hopes were cen- 
tered, and could never be made to lift up their heads 
after. The cloud has come down upon the mountain top, 
and descends lower and lower, till at last all is wrapt 
in impenetrable gloom ; and in this, the winter season, 
which has come upon them, there is no' hope of its rising. 
They now give themselves over to melancholy, "indulge 
in melancholy," as the expression is, finding that it is 
easier for them to do so than make the exertion to be 
rid of it, which they feel to be hopeless and useless. 
{Supra, p. 75.) 

"From his observations on melancholic patients, Mr. Nicol con- 
cludes that the inner ends of the eyebrows are almost always more 
or less raised, with the wrinkles on the forehead more or less plainly 
marked. In the case of one young woman, these wrinkles were ob- 
served to be in constant slight play or movement. In some cases 
the corners of the mouth are depressed, but often only in a slight 
degree." " The eyelids generally droop, and the skin near their 
outer corners and beneath them is wrinkled. The naso-labial fold, 
which runs from the wings of the nostrils to the corners of the mouth, 
and which is so conspicuous in blubbering children, is often plainly 
marked in these patients." (Darwin, c. vii.) " Melancholy mani- 
fests itself by dejection of spirits, debility of mind and body, obsti- 
nate and insuperable love of solitude, universal apathy, and a con- 
firmed listlessness, which emaciate the corporeal system, and, not 
unfrequently, trouble the brain. (Cogan, c. ii.) 

Pride and self-humiliation. In the former, we 
form and cherish and entertain a high and self-satisfied 
opinion of ourselves, of our abilities, of our conduct, or 
of certain qualities supposed to be possessed by us, or of 
certain acts we have done. In the latter, we are not 
satisfied with ourselves, we do not believe we have quali- 



IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS. 129 

fications for certain offices, and we depreciate what we 
have done. The one state, when it is self-righteous, may 
become a sin offensive to God and Self- Conceit denounced 
by man ; the other, if it is yielded to, and not counter- 
acted by a sense of duty, may become a Poorness of Spirit 
which prevents us from engaging in anything which re- 
quires cournge and perseverance. The one, if we dwell 
only on the good qualities we possess, may become Self- 
Respect to keep us from what is mean and unworthy ; 
the other, when it leads us to take a lowly attitude be- 
fore God and our fellow-men, may become the grace of 
Humility. 

" A proud man exhibits his sense of superiority over others by 
holding his head and body erect. He is haughty (haut) or high, 
and makes himself appear as large as possible, so that metaphorically 
he is said to be swollen or puffed up with pride. A peacock, or tur- 
key-cock strutting about with puffed-up feathers, is sometimes said 
to be an emblem of pride. The arrogant man looks down on others 
and with lowered eyelids hardly condescends to see them ; or he may 
show his contempt by slight movements about the nostrils or lips. 
Hence the muscle which everts the lower lip has been called the 
musculus superbus. It is added that the mouth is closed, ' from the 
proud man feeling perfect self-confidence in himself.' " (Darwin, 
c. xi.) 

Vanity differs from pride, inasmuch as in it people im- 
agine that they stand high in public esteem, and are led 
to put themselves in positions in which they may dazzle 
the eyes of their fellow-men. He who cherishes it is 
flattered by attention paid to him, by applause, perhaps 
even by notoriety, and is mortified by neglect, by blame, 
and abuse. Opposed is the Shrinking from public gaze, 
commonly from fear of being found fault with. 

Haughtiness implies not only a high opinion of our- 
selves but a sense of superiority to others, often shown in 
mien and air. In Contempt we express by words or by 



130 EMOTIONS AS DIKECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. - 

manner that we havo a low opinion of others. In Dis- 
dain we indicate that they are inferior to us in such 
qualities as worth, ability, and rank, and that we have no 
regard for them or no use for them. In Scorn we declare 
that they are unworthy of our notice. In Sneering we 
notice them, but only to point to their low qualities. In 
JHsgust we view them as we would an offensive object, 
say a lhal-odor. Opposed to all these is a spirit of Meek- 
ness, which " seeketh not its own," and does not think of 
its superiority to others. 

" Contempt and disdain are often accompanied with a satirical 
smile which strongly insinuates that baseness and meanness are also 
intermixed with large portions of folly." (Cogan, p. I. c. ii.) " Con- 
trasted with joy is the testy, pettish, peevish countenance bred of 
melancholy; as of one who is incapable of receiving satisfaction from 
whatever source it may be offered ; who cannot endure any man to 
look steadily upon him, or even speak to bim, or laugh, or jest, or 
be familiar, or hem, or point, without thinking himself contemned, 
insulted, or neglected. The arching of the mouth, and peculiar form 
of the wings of the nose, are produced by the conjoint action of the 
triangular muscle which depresses the angles of the mouth and the 
superbus, whose individual action protrudes the lower lip. The 
very peevish turn given to the eyebrows, tbe acute upward inflection 
of their inner extremities, and the meeting of the perpendicular and 
transverse furrows in the middle of the forehead, are produced by the 
opposed action of part of the frontal muscle and of the corrugator. ' ' 
(Bell, Essay vii.) "The lips are retracted and the grinning teeth 
exposed. The upper lip is retracted in such a manner that the ca- 
nine tooth on one side of the face alone is shown ; the face itself 
being generally a little upturned and half averted from the person 
causing offense." " The expression of a half- playful sneer gradu- 
ates into one of great ferocity when, together with a heavily frown- 
ing brow and fierce eye, the canine tooth is exposed." (Darwin, c. 
x.) In sulkiness, as seen for instance in children, there is a protru- 
sion or pouting of the lips. (c. v.) " The most common method of 
expressing contempt is by movements about the nose or round the 
mouth ; but the latter movements, when strongly pronounced, indicate 
disgust. The nose may be slightly turned up, which apparently fol- 



IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS. 131 

lows from the turning up of the upper lip ; or the movement may be 
abbreviated into the mere wrinkling of the nose. The nose is often 
slightly contracted so as partly to close the passage, and is commonly 
accompanied by a slight snort or expiration. All these actions are 
the same with those we employ when we perceive an offensive odor. 
We seem thus to say to the despised person that he smells offen- 
sively ; in nearly the same manner as we express to him by half 
closing our eyelids or turning away our faces, that he is not worth 
looking at." (c. xi.) 

Submission, Resignation, Patience. Under these 
emotions we know and feel that we are exposed to evil 
imposed by circumstances, or by the intention of an agent. 
We might be tempted to rebellion and to fighting, and 
the issue would be irritation, as when the rock opposes 
the waves. But we choose to submit to the inevitable, 
or we resign ourselves to what is our lot. We may rise 
to a far higher state, — to the grace of patience which 
submits implicitly to the will of God and believes that 
all is for good. 

Resistance, Repining, Peevishness, SulMness, Disgust. 
We oppose and resent the evil to which we are exposed, 
or we habitually dwell on the evils of our lot; we throw 
the blame on our position or on our fellow-men, and com- 
plain of fortune, of fate, or of God. Often the sense of 
injury done is allowed to sink into the heart, breeding 
discontent and issuing in murmuring or in disobliging 
acts indicating the peevish temper within. Some yield 
to sulkiness, and retreat, as into a cave, from their fellow- 
men as unworthy of their confidence and regard. 

In the look and mien of resignation there is a resistance to the 
impulses which would lead to rebellion and retaliation, such as anger 
and revenge; and this gives a suppressed and a subdued look, with 
possibly the hands lying over the body and the eyes cast downward. 

Good and Bad Humor. These are habitual states. 
They may depend very much on the bodily tempera- 



132 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

ment. Good humor often proceeds simply from good 
health, favored, it may be, by prosperity. Quite as fre- 
quently, however, it is produced by mental appetences 
cherished from day to day. In all cases it consists in a 
flow of grateful feelings running towards what is pleas- 
ing and viewing all things on the sunny side. In the 
opposite humor all things are clothed, as it were, in the 
dress of mourning. Possibly under the influence of a 
disordered stomach, or a diseased frame, or cherished ill- 
temper, the mind flits from one ungrateful topic towards 
another : in the past remembering only misfortunes or ill 
usage ; in the present thinking only of deprivations, and 
in the future picturing only woes. It may become a 
Sourness of Temper painted visibly on the countenance, 
• and exhibited in the manner, and rejecting all kind pro- 
posals, even those of genuine love. 

" A man in high spirits, though he may not actually smile, com- 
monly exhibits some tendency to the retractions of the corners of his 
mouth. From the excitement of pleasure the circulation becomes 
more rapid, the eyes are bright, and the color of the face rises. The 
brain, being stimulated by the increased flow of blood, reacts, on the 
mental powers ; lively ideas pass still more rapidly through the mind, 
and the affections are warmed. I heard a child a little under four 
years, when asked what was meant by being in good spirits, answer 
' it is laughing, talking, and kissing.' " (Darwin, c. viii.) 

Already some of these feelings relate to supposed good 
or evil to others as well as ourselves. We may now look 
exclusively to the emotions bearing on others. 

Pity is produced by the idea of a person subjected to 
pain or to any form of evil. When it is continuous it is 
compassion towards those who suffer, and it may be 
those that sin. Opposed is Hardness of Heart, which is 
insensible to the wail of misery, and steels itself against 
the claims of poverty and suffering. 



IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS. 133 

Sympathy, with Joys or Sorrows. This is a fine ele- 
ment of human character. It originates in the affection 
which we naturally have towards others. All this, how- 
ever, may be a mere surface sensibility, as fleeting as the 
play of features on the countenance, or as the chasing of 
sunshine and shadow on the mountain sides, very pleas- 
ant, but evanescent, — as one observed of a sensitive 
person ever in smiles and tears, that he was a man of 
tenderness of nerve rather than of heart. Such persons 
feel for us, but they do not stand by us ; they do not help 
us. In genuine feeling sympathy is rooted and grounded 
in love, and is a branch of love, and a grace of a high 
order. We are commanded to "rejoice with them that 
do rejoice and weep with them that weep." 

In it our heart beats responsive to the hearts of others. 
We enter into their feelings ; we identify ourselves with 
them. Our very countenance is apt to take the expres- 
sion of the feeling into which we enter. When we see 
others laugh we are apt to laugh also. We weep with 
those that weep. We are disposed to run with those 
that run. We flee with those that flee. When others 
are striking a blow we are inclined to lift our arm as if to 
do the same. It is usually said that all this arises from 
the principle of imitation. The correct account rather 
is, that we place ourselves in the position of others, and 
are thus led to act as they act. 

Envy. Here we have an idea of others being supe- 
rior to us, and instead of rejoicing in it we feel as if we 
were thereby lowered and injured, and are tempted to 
lower and injure them. Envy is one prompting cause of 
our depreciation of others, of slander, and of the efforts 
we make to oppose and keep down our rivals. 

Trust or Confidence in a fellow-creature, or Suspicion. 
We look on an individual as to be relied on or not to be 



134 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

relied on, and a feeling of trust or mistrust arises. This 
feeling is apt to become especially strong when we view 
him as having a relation to us ; and as likely to stand 
by us in an emergency, or to abandon us and turn 
against us. Some are confiding to the extent of weak- 
ness, and so are likely to be taken in ; others are un- 
reasonably and cruelly suspicious, and construe every 
appearance as a proof of guilt. These extremes are 
manifestations of a temper inclined to look on mankind 
with kindly or with unkindly feelings, but not stopping 
to weigh evidence. 

Suspicion is described in the " Faery Queen : " — 

" Foul, ill-favored, and grim, 
Under his eyebrows looking still askance, 
And ever as Dissemblance laughed on him 
He lower'd on her with dangerous eye glance, 
Showing his nature in his countenance, 
His rollings eyes did never rest in place, 
But walked each where, for fear of hid mischance 
Holding a lattice still before his face, 
Though he still did peep as forward he did pace." 

Suspicion, while keeping the body unmoved to avoid notice, may 
be turning the eye in a peering manner. 

Rejoicing in or Jealousy of the success of others. 
We have been brought into a relation more or less close 
with certain of our fellow-men. We are led in conse- 
quence of the social instinct to feel an interest in them 
and in their prosperity ; we feel as if their success is 
our success ; we are almost as much delighted with it as 
they are, and we are prompted to further it from inter- 
ested or disinterested motives. Or, a person has come 
between us and those whom we love, or those on whom 
we suppose that we have some claim, or he is hinder- 
ing our favorite ends or schemes, and we become jealous 
of him. When his name is mentioned, when we meet 



IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS. 135 

him or we are led to think of him, especially when we 
are brought into collision with him, painful associations 
come up, and we wish that he may be disappointed. 
This disposition shows itself among the lower animals. 
The pet dog indicates its dislike of any other creature — 
dog or cat or child — that threatens to usurp its place. 
That girl is very much offended when any other child 
gets more attention than she does from nurse or mother. 
Jealousies arise in the rivalries of school, and appear in 
every future stage of life, and are seen in the competi- 
tions of trade, of dress, of social dignity, of popularity, 
of honor and reputation. It is more common in certain 
walks of life than in others, and is apt to come out to 
notice in all those professions in which the members 
come in collision with each other : as, for instance, 
among doctors, who have to consult about delicate 
cases ; among actors and actresses, who have to live on 
popular applause, which is apt to be capricious ; among 
authors, who have to be sustained by public opinion ; 
and even among popular preachers, who feel that they 
have a reputation to keep up, and are not awed by the 
responsibility of their office, Women are more disposed 
to feel it than men, because of their numerous small 
attachments, and because there is not as much oppor- 
tunity of having their angles and points rubbed off and 
smoothed by intercourse with the world. It has to be 
added that when men are frustrated in a ruling passion 
they are apt to keep up the bitterness longer and ex- 
press it more loudly than the opposite sex. 

Jealousy is more specially felt when there has been an 
affection of some kind between the parties. It is most 
apt to be felt by lovers, and may disturb the intercourse 
of husband and wife. Lovers are so dependent on the 
smile of the loved one that they feel as if left in darkness 



136 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

when the sunshine is withdrawn, and they attribute the 
withdrawal to a rival coming between. Husband and 
wife feel that they have a right to the pledged affection 
of one. to the other, and are indignant at the one who has 
enticed it away and grieved with the one who has un- 
lawfully bartered it. 

" In jealousy the eyelid is fully lifted and the eyebrows strongly 
knit, so that the eyelid almost entirely disappears and the eyeball 
glares from under the bushy eyebrow. There is a general tension 
on the muscles which concentrate round the mouth ; and the lips 
are drawn so as to show the teeth with an expression of cruelty, 
depending in a great measure, perhaps, on the turn of the nostrils 
which accompanies the drawing of the lips." (Cogan.) " In jeal- 
ousy the eyebrows are knit, and the eyelid so fully lifted as almost 
to disappear, while the eyeball glares from under the bushy eye- 
brow. There is a general tension of the muscles which concentre 
round the mouth and the lips, and show the teeth with a fierce 
expression. This depends partly on the turn of the nostril which 
accompanies the retraction of the lips." (Bell, Essay vii.) 

SECTION III. 

PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 

The emotions looking to the future are the main stim- 
ulants of activity. As we fix our eyes on the past we 
may be kept from going forward ; we may be satisfied, 
and so cease to exert ourselves, or so dissatisfied as to 
give ourselves up to unbelief or despair. The present 
may induce us to linger in it; the present good may sat- 
isfy us or the present evil may bow us down to the earth. 
In the emotions now under consideration we look on the 
land before us, and are allured to go on to possess it. 
" We are saved by hope." Without it we would lie 
down and perish ; with it We rise as Mungo Park did, 
when, being prostrated and ready to die, his eyes fell on 
the " blue-bell " of Scotland, and he arose with the pur- 



• PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 137 

pose of yet seeing his native land. It is a common saying 
that more of human happiness may proceed from hope 
than realization ; the enjoyment is in the hunt rather 
than in the game caught. It is fortunate, it is providen- 
tial that it is so. Men are not expected, after having 
gained some petty end, to retire from the heat of the 
day and give themselves over to indolence. To those 
who would linger too long in the shade God may send a 
gadfly to rouse them from their torpor and send them 
forth to new activities. 

The prospective emotions, like all the others, may be 
divided into those that look to the appetible and those 
that look to the inappetible, in other words into the 
grateful and ungrateful. But there is an important class 
which lies in an intermediate region. 

Surprise, Astonishment. An event occurs very sud- 
denly or contrary to the usual course of things, or the 
expectations which we were led to entertain. It is of 
such a character that it must have momentous ^conse- 
quences. But we know not at first whether it is to be 
for good or for evil. It thus raises feeling ; for the mind 
dwells on the possible or probable evil, and becomes ex- 
cited, perhaps restless, hoping or fearing, or flitting from 
the one to the other. This may continue for a time, till 
we see what the nature of the event is to be, what are its 
causes and its consequences ; and then the miracle comes 
to be regarded as a natural occurrence. The feeling is 
apt to be strongest among the young who more frequent- 
ly meet with unexpected occurrences and are more un- 
certain about the issues. As they advance in life they 
are less liable to meet with incidents out of the course 
of their ordinary experience, and better able to calculate 
the. results. The young run to every blazing fire ex- 
pecting pleasure which the old know is not likely to fol- 



138 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

low. The consequence is that the aged are apt to cease 
to feel an interest in what is passing ; because their ex- 
perience does not justify them in expecting from it much 
good or much evil. 

" The first impulse of surprise deprives the subject of the power 
of utterance, and the first exertion of this returning power consists 
in loud exclamations adapted both to the nature of the emotion it- 
self and to its confusion and wonder in relation to the object." 
"The eyes are sometimes fastened upon the author or narrator of 
something wonderful; sometimes they are directed upwards to be 
more detached from every surrounding object which might distract 
the attention; sometimes they roll about as if they were in search 
of an object that may be equal to the explanation, and the half- 
opened mouth seems eager to receive the desired information." 
(Cogan c. ii.) " The eyes and mouth being widely open is an ex- 
pression universally recognized as one of surprise or astonishment. 
Thus, Shakespeare says: 4 I saw a smith stand with open mouth 
swallowing a tailor's news.' And again, ' They seemed almost with 
staring on one another to tear the cases of their eyes; there was 
speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture; they 
looked as they had heard of a world destroyed.' " " That the eye- 
brows are raised by an innate or instinctive impulse may be inferred 
from the fact that Laura Bridgman invariably acts thus when as- 
tonished, as I have been assured by the lady who has lately had 
charge of her. As surprise is excited by something unexpected or 
unknown, we naturally desire, when startled, to perceive the cause 
as quickly as possible ; and we consequently open our eyes fully ; 
so that the field of vision may be increased and the eyeballs moved 
easily in any direction. But this hardly accounts for the eyebrows 
being so greatly raised as is the case, and for the wild staring of 
the open eyes. The explanation of this lies, I believe, in the im- 
possibility of opening the eyes with great rapidity by merely rais- 
ing the upper lids. To effect this the eyebrows must be lifted en- 
ergetically. Any one who will try to open his eyes as quickly 
as possible before a mirror will find that he acts thus; and the en- 
ergetic lifting up of the eyebrows opens the eyes so widely that 
they stare the while, being exposed all round the iris. Moreover, 
the elevation of the eyebrows is an advantage in looking upwards; 
for as long as they are lowered they impede our vision in this di- 



PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 139 

rection." "The habit of raising the eyebrows having once been 
gained in order to see as quickly as possible all around us, the 
movement would follow from the force of association whenever as- 
tonishment was felt from any cause, even from a sudden sound or 
idea." " The cause of the mouth being opened when astonishment 
is felt is a much more complex affair and several causes apparently 
concur in leading to this movement." " We can breathe much more 
quietly through the open mouth than through the nostrils, therefore 
when we wish to listen intently to any sound we either stop breath- 
ing or breathe as quietly as possible by opening our mouths, at 
the same time keeping our bodies motionless." When the atten- 
tion is directed forcibly to an object, the organs of the body not en- 
gaged are neglected, and so in astonishment many of the muscles 
become relaxed, and hence the open dropping of the jaw and open 
mouth of a man stupefied with amazement. Another cause oper- 
ates. " We can draw a full and deep inspiration much more easily 
through the widely open mouth than through the nostrils. Now 
when we start at any sudden sound or sight, almost all the muscles 
of the body are involuntarily and momentarily thrown into strong 
action for the sake of guarding ourselves against or jumping away 
from the danger which we habitually associate with anything un- 
expected. But we always unconsciously prepare ourselves for any 
great exertion by first taking a deep and full inspiration, and we 
consequently open our mouths." " Thus several causes concur to- 
wards this same, whether surprise, astonishment, or amazement is 
felt." (Darwin, c. xii.) 

Admiration, Wonder, and Veneration. We are struck 
with something supposed to be great in power, in intel- 
lect, or in goodness. We anticipate important effects to 
follow ; as we do so corresponding feelings rise and surge 
and swell. When the objects or consequences are good, 
admiration and wonder may become moral in their nat- 
ure. They may become a veneration for all that is ex- 
cellent towards the aged, the ancient, the grand. The nil 
admirari school may seem very wise, and may boast that 
they are never deceived, but as they have no beau ideal 
they never accomplish anything truly great. Wonder 



110 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

opens our eyes and fixes them on something high to 
which it would elevate us. It is an essential element in 
all truly exalted character, and leads on to Reverence and 
Awe. It enters largely into the Adoration and worship 
which we pay to God. 

" In admiration the faculty of sight is enjoyed to the utmost and 
all else is forgotten. The brow is expanded and unruffled, the eye- 
brows gently raised, the eye lifted so as to expose the colored sur- 
face of the eye, while the lower part of the face is relaxed in a gentle 
smile. The mouth is open, the jaw a little fallen, and by the relaxa- 
tion of the lower lip we must perceive the edge of. the lower teeth 
and tongue. The posture of the body is most expressive when it 
seems arrested in some familiar action." (Bell, Essay vii.) " When 
subject to particular influences the natural position of the eyeball is 
to be directed upward. In sleep, languor, and depression, or when 
affected with strong emotions, the eyes naturally and insensibly 
roll upwards. The action is not a voluntary one; it is irresistible. 
Hence in reverence, in devotion, in agony of mind, in all sentiments 
of pity, in bodily pain with fear of death, the eyes assume that posi- 
tion." "We thus see that when wrapt in devotional feelings, and 
when outward impressions are unheeded, the eyes are raised by an 
action neither taught nor acquired. It is by this instinctive motion 
we are led to bow with humility, to look upward in prayer, and to re- 
gard the visible heavens as the seat of God." (Bell, Essay iv.) 

" Prayer is the upward glancing of the eye 
When none but God is near." 

The Prospective Emotions proper are all of the nature 
of — 

Hope, and Fear. The former of these arises from the 
contemplation of good, the latter from the apprehension 
of evil as about to come. The feeling varies with the 
nature and extent of the good or evil conceived, and of 
the probability of its coming. 

The tendency of hope is to enliven, to cheer, to stimu- 
late action. But it is also true that ill-grounded hopes, 
fostering in the first instance a false security, and so lead- 



PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 141 

ing to disappointment, may make us despair of accom- 
plishing any good end. " Hope deferred maketh the 
heart sick." The tendency and the final cause of fear is 
to hold back and repress, when we might be tempted to 
rush into danger. But some are so terror-stricken that 
they are incapable of taking any action to ward off the 
evil. It has to be added, that fear has sometimes called 
forth and intensified dormant energies. There are occa- 
sions when man acquires courage from despair. A man 
fleeing for his life has performed feats of ingenuity and 
strength which he would not have attempted in calmer 
hours. In all cases there should be judgment and princi- 
ple exercised in seeing that we hope for proper objects, 
that we be afraid only of what is evil, and are ready to 
resist the evil when duty calls. 

Hope seems to give a life and a spring to our whole nervous sys- 
tem so far as it is influenced by the gray matter of the brain. It is 
especially seen in the keen eye. It leads us to look forward as if to 
see, and lean forward as if to reach, the object. We elevate the eye- 
brow that the view may be clear. But ' ' Fear produces an agony 
and anxiety about the heart not to be described; and it may be said 
to paralyze the soul in such a manner as to render it insensible to 
everything but its own misery. Inertness and torpor pervade the 
whole system, united with a constriction of the integuments of the 
body, and also a certain sense of being fettered, or of being rendered 
incapable of motion. The eyes are pallid, wild, and sunk in their 
sockets ; the countenance is contracted and wan, the hair stands 
erect, or at least this sensation is excited, which every child experi- 
ences so often as he is terrified by stories of ghosts, witches, etc. The 
bowels are strongly affected, the heart palpitates, respiration labors, 
the lips tremble, the tongue falters, the limbs are unable to obey the 
will or support the frame. Dreadful shrieks denote the inward an- 
guish. These are often succeeded by syncopes, which while they 
manifest that the sufferings are greater than nature can sustain, 
affoi-d a temporary relief." (Cogan c. ii. class I.) " Fear came 
upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then 
a spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh stood up. It 



142 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof; an image was 
before mine eyes; there was silence and I heard a voice." (Job iv. 
14-16.) 

Anticipation, ^Expectation, Assurance of Hope, are 
fainter and stronger forms, growing on the idea of good, 
as possibly, probably, or certainly coming. Sometimes it 
is a feeble light, pleasing, but not moving, the soul. Or, 
it may become lively and exciting, a source of happiness, 
and an incentive to activity. Or it may rise to a full 
assurance in which it has all the stability of realization : 
such is the hope of the return of the seasons or of a good 
man's fulfillment of promise ; such is hope in God, in his 
Word and Providence. It should be noticed that the 
practical result depends not only on the probability of 
the good, but on the character of the appetence. The 
hope which sways one person powerfully may have no 
charms to another. There are people in ecstacy at being 
Invited to a fashionable party which has no attractions 
whatever to others, who would rather have a day's fish- 
ing or hunting. One man is buoyed up all his life with 
the expectation of his reaching a high position of power 
or fame ; another looks down on all this because he aims 
at securing mental cultivation or spiritual excellence. 
Hope has a purifying effect when properly directed ; it 
purifies us even as the objects to which it looks, say God 
and heaven, are pure. 

Apprehension, Bread, Terror, Horror, Despair. These 
are different degrees of the same feeling, determined by 
the greatness of the evil and the probability of its reach- 
ing us. The extent of the evil is estimated not by any 
absolute standard, but by the strength of the appetence 
which has been thwarted. To one man the loss of money 
is scarcely felt to be a loss, for he has not set his affec- 
tions on wealth ; to another it is like tearing out his heart. 



PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 143 

To many the loss of a near relative stirs the soul to its 
lowest depths ; in others it only ruffles the surface, like 
a passing breeze. When the threatened storm is very 
distant, or very doubtful, there is only a slight tremor, 
enough to give a warning ; but as it comes near and de- 
scends with a hurricane power there are awful howlings 
and yawning gulfs. When the evil is steadily pressing 
on us like death, it is dread. When it comes suddenly 
upon us, say the news of a lost battle, it is terror. When 
all hope of being delivered from it is gone, it is despair, 
which is the darkness left when all the lights have been 
extinguished, and the man feels that he is lost, and is 
tempted to give up exertion and lie down and perish. 

" Terror causes the blood suddenly to leave the extreme parts 
of the frame ; the countenance becomes livid, the brain excited, 
the large arteries distended; the heart swells, the eyes start, the 
muscles become rigid or convulsed, and faintness, or perhaps sud- 
den death, ensues." (Moore, part III.) In terror the man stands 
with eyes intently fixed on the object of his fears, the eyebrows ele- 
vated to the utmost, and the eye largely uncovered ; or with hesitat- 
ing and bewildered steps, his eyes are rapidly and wildly in search 
of something. " Observe him farther: There is a spasm on his 
breast; he cannot breathe freely; the chest is elevated; the muscles 
of his neck and shoulders are in action ; his breathing is short and 
rapid; there is a gasping and convulsive motion of his lips, a tremor 
on his hollow cheek, a gulping and catching of his throat ; his heart 
is knocking at his ribs, while yet his lips and cheeks are ashy pale." 
" The heart beats quickly and violently, so that it palpitates or 
knocks against the ribs : but it is very doubtful whether it then 
works more efficiently than usual, so as to send a greater supply of 
blood to all parts of the body ; for the skin instantly becomes pale, 
as during incipient faintness. The paleness of the surface, however, 
is probably, in large part or exclusively, due to the vaso-motor centre 
being affected in such a manner as to cause the contraction of the 
small arteries of the skin. That the skin is much affected under 
the sense of great fear, we see in the marvelous and inexplicable 
manner in which perspiration immediately exudes from it. This 



144 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

exudation is all the more remarkable as the surface is then cold, 
and hence the term a ' cold sweat; ' whereas the sudorific glands are 
properly excited into action when the surface is heated. The hairs 
also on the skin stand erect, and the superficial muscles shiver. In 
connection with the disturbed action of the heart, the breathing is 
hurried, the salivary glands act imperfectly, the mouth becomes 
dry, and is often opened and shut. I have also noticed that under 
slight fear there is a strong tendency to yawn. One of the best 
marked symptoms is the trembling of all the muscles of the body; 
and this is often first seen in the lips. From this cause, and from 
the dryness of the mouth, the voice becomes husky or indistinct, or 
may altogether fail. Obstupui, steteruntque comce et vox faucibus 
hausit." There are other symptoms: " The pupils are said to be 
enormously dilated, or may be thrown into convulsive movements. 
The hands are alternately clinched and opened, often with a twitch- 
ing movement. The arms may be protruded as if to avert some 
dreadful danger, or may be thrown wildly over the head." (Dar- 
win, c. xii.) 

" Horror differs from both fear and terror, although more nearly 
allied to the last than to the first. It is more full of sympathy 
with the sufferings of others than engaged with our own. We are 
struck with horror even at the spectacle of artificial distress ; but it 
is peculiarly excited by the real danger or pain of another. We see 
a child in the hazard of being crushed by an enormous weight, with 
sensations of extreme horror. Horror is full of energy: the body 
is in the utmost tension, not unnerved by fear. The flesh creeps, 
and a sensation of cold seems to chill the blood ; the term is appli- 
cable of ' damp horror.' " (Bell, Essay vii.) 

' ' Despair is a mingled emotion. While terror is in some measure 
the balancing and distraction of a mind occupied with an uncertainty 
of danger, despair is the total wreck of hope, the terrible assurance 
of ruin having closed around beyond all power of escape. The ex- 
pression of despair must vary with the nature of the distress of which 
it is the acme. In certain circumstances it will assume a bewildered, 
distracted air, as if madness were likely to afford the only relief 
from the mental agony. Sometimes there is at once a wildness in 
the looks, and total relaxation as if falling into insensibility, or there 
is upon the countenance of the desperate man a horrid gloom ; the 
eye is fixed, yet he neither sees nor hears aught, nor is sensible of 
what surrounds him; the features are shrunk and pale and livid, 
and convulsions and tremors affect the muscles of the face." (Bell, 
Essay vii.) 



PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 145 

Shyness is a feeling arising from a sensitive apprehen- 
sion as to the opinion that may be formed of us by 
others. It leads us to retire into the shade and hide 
ourselves from the public gaze ; like Viola, 

" Who never told her love ; 
But let concealment, like a worm in the bud, 
Feed on her damask cheek." 

Shame is a modification of the same feeling in which 
we shrink from exposing our person, or it may be our 
guilt, for fear of reproach. Modesty and Impudence be- 
long to the same class. In the former we shrink from 
displaying our excellences, or, it may be, from asserting 
our rights. It is not so much an emotion as a virtue. In 
Impudence we pay no regard to propriety and we defy 
the opinion of others. 

" Some persons flush up at any sudden and disagreeable recollec- 
tion." In regard to Blushing, "The theory which appears tome 
most probable, though it may at first seem rash, is that attention 
closely directed to any part of the body tends to interfere with the 
ordinary and tonic contraction of the small arteries of that part. 
These vessels, in consequence, become at such times more or less 
relaxed, and are constantly filled with arterial blood. This ten- 
dency will have been much strengthened if frequent attention has 
been paid during many generations to the same part, owing to 
nerve force readily flowing along accustomed channels, and by the 
power of inheritance. Whenever we believe that others are depre- 
ciating or even considering our personal appearance our attention 
is vividly directed to the outer and visible parts of our bodies ; and 
of all such parts we are most sensitive about our faces, as no doubt 
has been the case during many past generations." (Darwin, c. xiii.) 

Anxiety. It presupposes an object in which we are 
interested and a threatened obstacle in the way of the 
attainment of it. The interest in it keeps the eye fixed 
on the object, and fears spring up as we discover hin- 
drances standing, like the angel seen by the prophet's ass 
with the drawn sword, in the way. When the impell- 
10 



146 EMOTIONS AS DIRECTED TO ANIMATE OBJECTS. 

ing passion is a tempest, the soul may be in an agitated 
state, like a ship in a storm, now dizzy and trembling 
on the ridge of the wave, and forthwith down in the 
depths. Plow tremulous the hand of the youth as he 
presents a letter to a patron who has the means of be- 
friending him, and of a mother presenting a petition for 
the reprieve of her son. How fluttered is the lover who 
has sent off a proposal to a loved one and is waiting for 
an answer. What risings and fallings, what elevations 
and depressions, what ebbs and flows. How terrible the 
agony of the mother as she watches by the sick-bed of 
her son on the night of the crisis of the fever. Some 
have felt the anxiety so keenly that they have almost 
wished that the decision were against them, rather than 
that they should be thus tossed. In such cases the hopes 
only make the fears more horrific, as the lightnings re- 
veal the densit}'' of the surrounding darkness. 

Disapjyointment. The phrase may be used in a more 
ge~ne"ral or a more specific sense. It may be applied to 
every case in which an appetence has been frustrated, 
that is, has not gained its object. I have been using 
it in this sense, in this treatise, in strict conformity, I 
believe, with the usage of our tongue. But it is em- 
ployed in this place in a more specific sense, as the 
counterpart of expectation. A good has been hoped for 
and has not come. Disappointment as an emotion arises 
when the expected blessing is not realized. This feel- 
ing is strong in proportion to the previously entertained 
hope. What a darkness when a light to which we have 
long been looking is quenched : say when a lover finds 
that the person beloved has been amusing herself with 
him, or has jilted him ; or when a man, after toiling for 
years or a life-time, discovers that his life plan has been 
wrecked and dashed helplessly in pieces. A peculiar bit- 



PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 147 

terness is engendered when there has been a betrayal of 
us by those whom we loved and trusted, or to whom we 
committed our confidence and our money. On the other 
side, what a relief when a threatening cloud long hang- 
ing over us is dispelled, and we find ourselves in light 
and comfort, with friends whom we mistrusted standing 
by us. 

A peculiarity is imparted to these prospective feelings 
when our hopes and fears have arisen from the acts of 
others. There is the Hope of Approbation of smiles and 
favors from friends to whom, in consequence, we become 
attached. There is the fear of enmity from those who 
are prejudiced against us, or of revenge on the part of 
those whom we have offended. There is Horror at atro- 
cious conduct, as, for example, when we hear of an un- 
natural son striking; or killing; a father. 



CHAPTER III. 

EMOTIONS CALLED FORTH BY INANIMATE OBJECTS. 
THE AESTHETIC. 

SECTION I. 

jESTHETICAL theories. 

This introduces us to the feelings called forth by those 
objects which are called Beautiful, Picturesque, Ludicrous, 
and Sublime. Shaftesbury and Hutcheson reckoned these 
as constituting Senses, such as the sense of Beauty, the 
Sense of the Ludicrous. The French writers spoke of 
them as Grdut, which English and Scotch writers trans- 
lated Taste, and discussed the nature and pleasures of 
Taste ; and the phrase is still habitually employed in our 
language — as when we talk of persons of taste. Of a 
later date, following Kant and the Germans, the feel- 
ings to which I refer have been called aesthetic, and the 
science which treats of the corresponding objects, aesthet- 
ics. None of these phrases is unexceptional. They all 
seem to refer to bodily senses, emotions which certainly 
proceed from a higher department of our nature. Ruskin 
has proposed to call the mental power from which they 
proceed the Theoretical, from Oewpta, vision, but there are 
many and obvious objections against turning to this use 
a phrase which had been otherwise applied, and Mr. 
Ruskin's recommendation has not been followed. The 
phrase aesthetics may be employed till another and a 
better be devised and generally accepted. I am inclined 



^esthetical theories. 149 

to think that the best term to denote the science would 
be Kalology, that is, the science of the to KaAoV, or the 
Beautiful. 

The opinions which have been entertained by eminent 
men as to the Beautiful may be represented as three in 
number. 

(1.) There are those who hold that it consists of some 
mental quality perceived by the mind, as existing in ob- 
jects. Whatever objects possess this quality are to be 
reckoned as beautiful, those without it are to be held as 
non-beautiful. This theory was started by the oldest 
thinker who has speculated on this subject : I refer to 
Plato, who may be regarded as the founder of the science 
of assthetics. According to him there had been an Idea 
in or before the Divine Mind from all eternity ; which 
idea is so far impressed on objects on the earth and in 
the heavens. So far as objects partake of this Divine 
Idea they are beautiful ; and the mind of man, being 
formed at first in the image of God, is capable of rising, 
by means of philosophic contemplation, to a Pure Love 
(called ever since Platonic Love), which discerns and 
appreciates the beauty. This beauty consists essentially 
in order opposed to disorder, in harmony and proportion. 
It is not sensation nor utility ; it is mind, king of heaven 
and earth, bringing forms, sounds, and colors under limi- 
tation. He treats of the subject in the " Phsedrus," the 
" Banquet," the " Philebus," and the "Greater Hippias." 
He makes Socrates say, " For the Celestial Aphrodite 
herself, the goddess of all beauty, being well aware that 
mere pleasure and all sorts of sensuous gratification have 
no element of limit in themselves, introduced Law" and 
Order, to which limitation necessarily belongs." He is 
greatly struck with the properties of certain mathemati- 
cal figures. " When I talk of the beauty of forms, I do 



150 EMOTIONS CALLED FORTH BY INANIMATE OBJECTS. 

not understand, as most people might, certain shapes of 
living animals, or of painted animals, but my argument 
refers to lines, straight or curved generally, and to what- 
ever figures, plain or solid, are made with a straight or 
a curved outline, by rules and plumb-lines, or by com- 
passes and the turner's lathe, — things quite familiar to 
you. Now, with regard to all these things, I say that 
they are beautiful, not relatively, as so many other things 
are, but that by their very nature they are essentially 
and eternally beautiful, and that they are accompanied by 
certain peculiar pleasures which have no affinity whatso- 
ever with the pleasurable affection produced by common 
irritants and stimulants. And of colors also, and the 
pleasures connected with them, the same thing may be 
predicated." He perceives a peculiar beauty in certain 
triangles which have remarkable properties in themselves 
or are capable of producing new figures by juxtaposi- 
tion. He instances the right-angled isosceles triangle, 
which has the two angles at the base, each equal to half 
a right angle ; the ratio, being of 2 to 1, always pre- 
sents one unvarying type of great beauty. 1 With all the 
Greeks the to ko\6v consisted in that on which order has 
been imposed, as opposed to matter (vA^), which is waste 
and formless. 

Since the time of Plato this theory, which in a general 
way we may call Platonic, has appeared and reappeared 
in the speculations of profound thinkers. Aristotle views 
the beautiful under various forms, but represents it in 
his "Metaphysics" as being essentially order (Va£is), and 
this, in that which is bounded (wpto-^eVov). The great 
philosophic divine, Augustine, represents beauty as con- 
sisting in order and design. Francis Hutcheson, who has 
written much on this subject, maintains that it consists 
1 See On Beavty, by Professor Blackie. 



.ESTHETICAL theories. 151 

in unity with variety. Give us mere unity or uniformity 
and we have no beauty ; hut give us variety also, and 
there is beauty in proportion to the variety. Give us 
variety merely, and there is no beauty ; but let there be 
unity to combine the variety, and there is beauty in pro- 
portion to the unity. The same theory has been adopted 
and defended by M. Victor Cousin. High Platonic views 
have been illustrated with great beauty by Dr. McVicar, 
in various works on the Beautiful ; and by Mr. Ruskin, 
in his " Modern Painters," and his " Seven Lamps of 
Architecture," works of extraordinary eloquence. 

There is an elevation and a grandeur about these views 
which recommends them to our higher nature. They 
place beauty in certain noble qualities as perceived by 
the mind in objects. I have no doubt they contain a 
vast amount of truth. It may be doubted whether they 
embrace the whole truth. 

(2.) There are those who are seeking to show that 
beauty consists in certain objective qualities in the things 
themselves. This theory is not inconsistent with the last 
but appears in a somewhat different form. According to 
the Platonic view, there is beauty only so far as the high 
quality is perceived by the mind, say proportion, har- 
mony, or unity with variety. According to the second 
theory, the beauty is in the object itself, whether the 
mind perceives it or not. Not a few in our day are striv- 
ing to express the qualities of the beautiful in mathe- 
matical formulas. Mr. Hay of Edinburgh first traces a 
correspondence between the vibrations which produce 
sound and the vibrations which produce vision ; and then 
shows " that the definite ratios and known proportions 
which in the vibrations of a musical string produce har- 
mony to the ear, if transferred to the eye, will produce 
the feeling of a pleasing proportion in that sense ; spec- 



152 EMOTIONS CALLED FORTH BY INANIMATE OBJECTS. 

ially, that if musical strings whose length is in the ratio 
of 1, £, £, £, produce by their vibrations fixed harmonies 
in the ear, the same relations, applied to visual spaces, 
will produce corresponding aesthetic pleasure to the eye." 
(3.) There are those who maintain that beauty is pro- 
duced by Association of Ideas. The influence of associa- 
tion engendering feelings of the beautiful was pointed 
out clearly and judiciously by Francis Hutcheson, in his 
works " On Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue " (1725) 
and " On the Passions." The same line of remark was 
followed by Beattie, the well known Scotch poet and 
metaphysician. The author who has carried out these 
views to the greatest (indeed to an extravagant) extent 
is the Rev. Archibald Alison, in his " Essays on the 
Nature and Principles of Taste." I shall endeavor to 
give a summary of his views. He says : " In the course 
of this investigation I shall endeavor to show, first, that 
there is no single emotion into which these varied effects 
can be resolved ; that, on the contrary, every simple emo- 
tion, and therefore every object which is capable of pro- 
ducing any simple emotion, may be the foundation of the 
complex emotion of Beauty or Sublimity. But, in the 
second place, that this complex emotion of Beauty or 
Sublimity is never produced unless, beside the excitement 
of some simple emotion, the imagination also is excited, 
and the exercise of the two faculties combined in the 
general effect." To illustrate this, he says, let us look 
upon a wide, extended plain, covered with waving grain, 
whitening unto the harvest. We are not to suppose that 
there is anything beautiful in this scene, considered in 
itself ; or that it calls forth any separate feeling to be 
regarded as a feeling of the beautiful. But the field 
raises the idea of fertility and riches ; we think of the 
animated beings to be fed and sustained by the exuberant 



PLACE OF SENSATION IN ESTHETICS. 153 

grain, of the happiness, plenty, and peace thereby accru- 
ing, and the whole flow of feeling constitutes the senti- 
ment of the beautiful. We look upon a time-worn tower ; 
there is nothing more beautiful in it than in any other 
aggregation of stone and lime, but our minds are carried 
back to long past days and deeds of chivalry and prowess, 
and the whole feeling constitutes a sense of the Vener- 
able. We gaze on a water-fall ; it is only a collection of 
rock and water, but it raises a feeling of power which 
branches out into varied ideas and feelings, constituting 
our sentiment of the Sublime. 

Now this theory does account for certain of the phe- 
nomena, for certain of the accompaniments, specially the 
prolonging of the sentiment, of the beautiful. But it does 
not explain the whole facts, nor the main facts. It can 
be shown that there are qualities, physical and mental, 
which, of themselves, call forth a peculiar class of gesthetic 
feelings. 

In order to determine what truth there is in each of 
these three leading theories, let us look at the emotions 
raised. 

SECTION II. 

THE PLACE OP SENSATION IN ^ESTHETICS. 

I am prepared to admit that many of our sesthetic 
emotions start from sensation. There is commonly, if 
not always, a pleasant sentient feeling presupposed and 
existing throughout, as a condition of, that is, a concomi- 
tant in, the agencies acting as the cause of our emotion 
of beauty. But the peculiar aesthetic sentiment is al- 
ways something above and beyond mere sensibility. It 
may be useful, in clearing up the subject, to look at the 
preparations made by the various senses for the rise of 
the idea and the feeling of beauty. 



154 .ESTHETICS. 

Our muscular energies are employed, first, in work, 
and secondly, where there is not work sufficient to ex- 
ercise them, in play. There is often much excitement, 
much pleasure, in various kinds of play, as in running, 
leaping, gymnastics, fishing, and hunting ; but these 
have nothing aesthetic in their nature. The organic 
sensations and the lower senses, such as taste and smell, 
may give us many pleasant, and some unpleasant, sensa- 
tions, but we do not regard these as implying beauty or 
the opposite. The feeling of a healthy body, breathing 
fresh air and enjoying it, may be very stimulating; the 
food and viands at a table may be very luscious and grate- 
ful ; and the odors from a bed of violets, or roses, or even 
from a field of beans (described by Thomson), may be 
very elysian, but it does not rise to the region of the to 
kol\6v, or beautiful. We distinguish between a kitchen, a 
cookery, a perfumery on the one hand, and a palace of 
art on the other. It is one of the excellences of Kant's 
elaborate but artificial theory of the beautiful in his 
" Critique of the Judgment," which mediates between 
the Judgment and the Reason, that beauty is that which 
pleases without interest or pleasure taken in the object. 
In touch proper, or feeling, we are pleasantly affected by 
smooth, and offended by rough, surfaces. This is the one 
truth in Burke's very inadequate theory of beauty. It 
has to be added that all these may be woven into scenes 
deservedly called beautiful. In pictorial narratives meat 
and drink are given to weary travelers ; painters often 
set before us rich banquets, glossy foliage, and living 
streams ; and poets may bring in floating perfumes, and 
bracing breezes, and soft lawns on which we would wish 
to recline and be at rest. In all such cases there is 
beauty, but beauty raised by association, by interesting 
connections, and suggested feelings. 



PLACE OF SENSATION IN ^ESTHETICS. 155 

We seem to be rising toward the aesthetic in sweet 
sounds and rich colors which may, as it were, constitute 
an earthly paradise, but we have not mounted into the 
ethereal in which beauty and love have their habitation. 
These are, after all, merely sweet sensations which pre- 
pare a soil in which the plant may grow ; but there is no 
garden till living seed is thrown in and begins to 
grow. Even in gazing with delight on lovely forms, 
such as those of well proportioned buildings, and of 
plants and animals, of man and woman, there may be 
merely a pleasant sentient feeling arising from the ways 
in which the undulations of light affect the optic or- 
ganism. 

But already we are rising, as on wings, into a higher 
sphere. We have mounted, it ma^ be without knowing 
it, into the region of proportions and adaptations, with 
all their correlations and concomitants more wonderful 
than the harmonies of the spheres. It has been ac- 
knowledged, since the days of Pythagoras, that there are 
numerical relations in music felt in the organism and 
pleasantly recognized by the mind. There are colors 
that are melodious, and others which are harmonious, 
which first affect the ocular sense in a stimulating way 
and produce vibrations in the sensorium, which are per- 
ceived in a sort of unconscious way in the mind, and 
raise an idea of adaptation of design and of mind, which 
may be the ultimate idea, and are the true basis, of the 
aesthetic emotion. It is believed that in forms recognized 
as beautiful there are proportions and ratios which may 
be expressed in mathematical formula?. These raise a 
rhythm in the sentient organism, and ideas are raised up, 
felt to be stimulating because of their suggestions. The 
instrument is now tuned, and is ready to give us the 
music. 



156 ESTHETICS. 

Mr. Grant Allen 1 has been successful in showing that 
much of the pleasant, sentient feeling arises from the 
alternate stimulation and repose of the nerves. " For it 
is a common experience that continued stimulation of a 
nerve deadens it, after a short time, to the action of the 
stimulus, while intermission of the stimulation gives time 
for the renewal of the nervous excitability and a conse- 
quent liability to fresh stimulation." " There is reason," 
he tells us, " to believe that the optic fibres and terminal 
organs are repaired in ordinary cases seventeen times per 
second, and those of the auditory nerves thirty-three 
times per second." In applying this law, he says "the 
nervous system has put itself into a position of expect- 
ancy and is ready for the appropriate discharge at the 
right moment." The correct statement is that the mind, 
not the nervous system, is put into a state of expectancy. 
The intellect would be disappointed if the stimulus did 
not come at its time. It anticipates the coming and it is 
gratified when it keeps its promise. It delights to notice 
the beats in the time. The intellect is, to a large extent, 
a comparative or correlative power : observing relations 
and delighting in the exercise as widening its sphere of 
vision. Here it is observing the relations of time and 
follows the beats ; it feels that there is a jar and is 
offended when they do not appear in their order. This, 
it will be acknowledged, has an important place in the 
pleasure derived from music, and furnishes the intellect- 
ual element which, as we shall see, goes on to produce the 
aesthetic emotions. This, no doubt, is the origin of the 
sentiment produced by rhythm in poetry, and the higher 
kinds of prose. As the ear a*nd the thought fall in 
with the swing we are stimulated, and the emotion be- 
comes aesthetic. I have no doubt there is something of 

1 Physiological Aesthetics. 



PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 157 

the same process in the sense of beauty produced by har- 
monious colors. 1 

SECTION in. 

PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 

The feeling of beauty, I have no doubt, commences in 
bodily sensation. There are sounds, colors, odors, tastes, 
touches, forms, which pleasantly affect the organism. 
These are the beginnings, and I rather think they go up, 
as an element, into our higher aesthetic affections. It is 
certain that if an object be felt as harsh by oar sensory 
organs it will not be appreciated as beautiful. In the 
case of some of the senses, with taste, smell, and feeling, 

1 Mr. Grant Allen, in his Physiological Aesthetics, has done more than 
any author before him to unfold the nature of the sensations which pre- 
cede the rise of the aesthetic emotions. He defines the aesthetically beau- 
tiful as " that which affords the maximum of stimulation, with the mini- 
mum of fatigue, or waste, in processes not directly connected with vital 
functions." The language is sufficiently vague. We are not told what 
sort of stimulation is referred to ? of body ? or of mind 1 There may be 
stimulation of body as in violent exercise ; and of mind as in fear, anger, 
where there is nothing aesthetic. He restricts the definition : " The processes 
are not to be directly connected with vital functions," that is, are not to 
be utilitarian. I am sure that mere utilitarian ideas will not awaken the 
aesthetic emotion. But as little will it hinder it, provided all the essential 
elements are present. A lovely field will not be less admired by me be- 
cause it is my own, and furnishes me with fruit and grain, and contributes 
to my health as I walk in it. Mere sentient stimulation, however restricted 
or enlarged, never constitutes the beautiful. We must have other and 
higher elements added. Professor Bain seems at times to have a glimpse 
of this. He tells us that " the objects of the fine arts, and all objects 
called aesthetic, are exempt from the fatal taint of rivalry and contest 
attaching to other agreeables ; they draw men together in mutual sympathy 
and are thus eminently social and humanizing." But this is an effect of 
the aesthetic sentiment, and not an element in it. In short, this earth-phil- 
osophy gives us a mere chemical analysis of the soil in which the plant 
grows, but does not show us the plant itself. Mr Allen often speaks of 
the " thrill of emotion." He should hare gone on to unfold the mental 
elements in this thrill. 



158 .ESTHETICS. 

the special animal senses, there are only pleasant sensa- 
tions, and nothing that can be described as Eesthetic. But 
in the higher senses, in sounds, colors, and forms, there 
are harmonious relations in the forces operating upon 
and in the organism, and these, being perceived sponta- 
neously, though very obscurely it may be, raise higher 
classes of feeling which constitute the sense of beauty. 

Musical Sounds. Those who have the peculiar gift 
feel themselves, as they listen to the strains of music, to 
be in a state of pleasurable excitement. From the time 
of Pythagoras it has been known that the sounds are 
characterized by definite mathematical relations. " Two 
sets of vibrations, regular each in itself, and bearing a 
relation to each other by uniting together, form a vibra- 
tion which is also regular, and the whole impression is 
regular, whereas two vibrations which bear no commen- 
surate ratio to each other, however regular each may be 
in itself, will not, by their union, produce a regular vibra- 
tion, and the result is not music, but a noise. So, also, 
when the nerve has been affected with a particular vibra- 
tion, it will necessarily accommodate itself with more 
ease to a new vibration, the more simple the ratios that 
this vibration bears to the former, so that those which 
bear the simplest ratios to each are most in harmony 
with each." Some such law as this, it is said, generalizes 
all the phenomena of harmony and discord. Hence it is, 
when two notes are in harmony the lengths and tensions 
of the strings producing the sound bear certain ratios to 
each other, and that when the notes are discordant the 
ratios are incommensurable. " Music," says Mr. Sully, 
" affords three distinct orders of gratification. First of 
all, in its • discrete, in its melodic and harmonic combi- 
nations, it satisfies, seemingly, simple sensibilities of the 
ear." Helmholtz supposes that the cooperation of several 



PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 159 

continuous nervous processes in distinct fibres is an ade- 
quate cause of the pleasures of harmony. Mr. Sully con- 
tinues, "Further, in its arrangement of these tonic ele- 
ments, under certain forms of tune, accepted rhythm, 
key, and undulation of key, it presents numerous beau- 
ties of symmetry and unity, which gratefully employ the 
intellectual faculties. Finally, it exercises a mysterious 
spell on the soul, stirring up deep currents of emotion, 
and awaking vague ideas of the Infinite, the Tragic, and 
the Serene." 1 This is all I am able to say of the beauty 
of music, in which, be it observed, we have the concur- 
rence of three distinct classes of agencies, first, the ratios 
in the vibrations of sound, secondly, the adapted state of 
the organism, and thirdly, the ideational and emotional 
mental state produced. 

Beauty in Forms. From the days of Plato, or rather 
of Pythagoras, attempts have been made to find out a 
law of the forms felt to be beautiful, founded on mathe- 
matical principles, and capable of being expressed quan- 
titatively. Some are laboring to discover the guiding 
rule of those curves which we admire so much in the 
gothic window. It has been asserted that certain mathe- 
matical forms, with modifications, are the bases of the 
beautiful proportions in Grecian architecture. Hogarth's 
line of beauty was a serpentine, formed by drawing a line 
round from the apex to the base of a tall cone, a figure 
which suggests design and grace. But this is only one 
of a number of lines of beauty. I confidently cherish the 
belief that sooner or later we may have a mathematical 
expression of the laws of form discerned as beautiful. 

But even when this is successfully accomplished, we 
have not touched the more important problem, How do 
these mathematical forms raise the feeling of beauty ? 

1 Sensation and Intuition, p. 220. 



160 ^ESTHETICS. 

Nor have we explained everything when wb show that 
the measured undulations which enable us to see them 
produce a pleasant sensation on the eye and optic organ- 
ism. For the question arises, How should this sensation 
produce an sesthetic feeling in the mind? 

Our analysis has shown that there is an idea, or a per- 
ception, as the nucleus of all emotion. May we not find 
a competent idea in the contemplation of harmonious 
sounds and well proportioned forms? I am inclined to 
think that in all aesthetic feeling there is a perception, 
or rather a succession of rapid perceptions, of relation, 
order, and harmony, indicating mind or purpose. It is 
certain that the feeling of beauty will not rise if there 
be an evident want of unity, symmetry, and proportion : 
if there be a limb torn from the body, or a side from the 
tree, or a prominent hulk in one part of a building with- 
out a corresponding prominence in another to balance it. 
The perception of the harmony is derived from the or- 
derly affection of the sensory organism, which, again, is 
produced by the orderly vibrations of the air or light. 
As the regular affections are noticed there is an idea of 
order, and of mind producing the order. This idea gives 
rise to a feeling which attaches us to the object which we 
declare to be beautiful ; we are drawn towards it, and 
come to delight in it and love it. 

Beauty of Color. " Light is pleasant to the eyes " 
always when it is not excessive. I believe that all the 
various hues into which it can be decomposed are also 
agreeable. A bright light attracts the eyes of infants, 
as also of certain insects which whirl round the candle. 
Children delight in bonfires, illuminations, and rockets. 
Red attracts the eyes of young people, and of savages, as 
does also yellow, to a less degree. Green, the most prev- 
alent color in nature, has a more soothing; influence, as 



PHYSICAL BEAUTY. 161 

it comes from leafage, and sky, and shallow sea. While 
these colors gratify the organism, I do not regard the 
sensations as aesthetic, any more than the pleasures of 
taste and smell. 

The aesthetic feelings proper do not arise till we have 
two colors in a relation to each other. There may be a 
low form of beauty in what have been called melodious 
colors, that is, colors which glide into others that are 
contiguous in the scale, as when blue runs gracefully into 
green, as we often see in pigeons, and yellow into red, as 
we see in geraniums. There is a higher form of beauty, 
attracting the eye and stimulating the mind, in harmony 
of colors. Two colors are said to be in harmony when 
together they make up the white beam. 

In the last age the accepted doctrine was that of Brews- 
ter, that the three primary colors in the beam were red, 
yellow, and blue, which by their mixtures give us all other 
colors ; thus blue and yellow mixed give us green. The 
accepted doctrine of the present day is that of Young, 
accepted by Helmholtz, that the primary colors are red, 
green, and violet ; thus yellow is made of red and green. 
There is a correspondence between these colors and the 
organism. " Dr. Young supposes that there are in the 
eye three kinds of nerve-fibres, the first of which, when 
irritated in any way, produces the sensation of red, the 
second the sensation of green, and the third that of violet. 
He further assumes that the first are excited most 
strongly by the waves of ether of greatest length ; the 
second, which are sensitive to green light, by the waves 
of middle length ; while those which convey impressions 
of violet are acted upon only by the shortest vibrations 
of ether. Accordingly, at the red end of the spectrum, 
the excitation of those fibres which are sensitive to that 
color predominates ; hence the appearance of this part 
11 



162 ESTHETICS. 

as red. Further on there is added an impression upon 
the fibres sensitive to green light, and thus results the 
mixed sensation of yellow. In the middle of the spec- 
trum the nerves sensitive to green become much more 
excited than the other two kinds, and accordingly green 
is the predominant impression. As soon as this becomes 
mixed with violet the result is the color known as blue, 
while at the most highly refracted end of the spectrum, 
the impression produced on the fibres which are sensi- 
tive to violet light overcomes every other." x 

It is universally admitted that complementary colors 
are felt to be beautiful when they fall simultaneously 
under the eye. But the white beam, when it falls upon 
our atmosphere, and upon objects on our earth, is often 
divided into two parts, which are complementary of each 
other ; and these presented to the eye raise an aasthetic 
feeling. We may notice these harmonies in the evening 
sky, and they allure our eye towards them and call forth 
emotion. We have a like division of rays when the beam 
falls on plants. It falls upon the leaf and the green rays 
are reflected by the chlorophyl, and the others are said 
to be absorbed according to laws which have not yet 
been determined. But these absorbed rays are not ex- 
tinguished or lost. I believe they tend to come forth in 
some part of the plants as colors which will be comple- 
mentary to the green and take the hue of red. The eye 
delights to see the fruit of the cherry, the rose, and the 
thorn, and the berry of the. holly, the yew, and the com- 
mon barberry, the mountain ash, and unnumbered others 
peeping forth from the green leaves. In like manner, 
when the white beam falls on the petals of flowers, the 

1 Helmholtz, Popular Scientific Lectures, translated by Atkinson, p. 250. 
I may express the opinion that these theories will require to be examined 
and readjusted before they can conform to, or explain, all the phenomena. 



INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 163 

blue-red, which is the most common color of the corolla, 
will be reflected, and the other rays will come out in 
some sort of yellow. 

A like harmony may be detected in the plumage of 
birds which often have a tawny hue, being a red-yellow, 
with other portions of a dark blue. In more ornamented 
birds we have a yellow-red with a blue-green. Many 
shells of mollusca are characterized by an orange-yellow 
ground with bluish-purple spots. It has been noticed 
that attention has been paid to harmony of colors in the 
finer specimens of stained glass, and this commonly from 
a delicate taste, and not from a knowledge of -the fcien- 
tific laws of color. ,. 

The general result reached is, that in lovely colors 
there is, first, a relation of the rays of light ; second, an 
adaptation, of the rays to the organ of vision ; and thirdly, 
a pleasurably excited state which deserves to* be called 
aesthetic. "*' - 

SECTION IV. 

INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 

Profound thinkers in various ages and countries have 
been in wonderful agreement with each other in main- 
taining that there is a beauty arising from harmony and 
proportion. Plato evidently regarded the to ko\6v as con- 
sisting in bringing order out of chaos, in taking in objects 
from the waste, in setting bounds to the limitless, in giv- 
ing forms to the formless, in imposing the idea on mat- 
ter. Augustine described beauty as consisting in order 
and design. Francis Hutcheson "represented it as unity 
with variety. Diderot spoke of beauty as consisting in 
relations ; a theory which may contain a fundamental 
truth, but is miserably bald till it is robed in richer 
colors. Hegel regards the form of beauty as unity of 



164 2ESTHETICS. 

the manifold, and traces in nature (especially organic) 
and in art a dependence, that is, unity, along with lib- 
erty in the parts. There must be some truth in these 
views. They err, as it appears to me, in being too nar- 
row, and overlooking other principles which should be 
joined with them. 

It may be maintained that the spontaneous perception 
of a number of relations among objects has a tendency 
to raise up feelings of beauty always when it is associ- 
ated with mind, with order, design, benevolence, or moral 
excellence. We may find proofs and illustrations of this 
in all the relations which the mind of man can discover. 

(1.) The mind feels a pleasure in observing sameness 
and differences. The mind demands a unity in the 
beautiful object, but this does not indicate a meaning 
unless there be also variety. There is a satisfaction in 
noticing the variety of our mental states, of our ideas, 
feelings, moods, while the self abideth. We like to see 
the repetition with infinite diversities of prevailing forms 
in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. Every part of 
the plant, the whole tree, the branch, the leaf, is after 
one model, while every part is diversified to suit its func- 
tion. A great uniformity is given to the higher animals 
by the skeleton being formed of vertebrae, constructed of 
like pieces, while every part is adapted to its function. 
There is an individuality in the plant and animal, and 
the oneness is most strikingly evidenced in the variety 
being made to conform to the unity. When we look at 
all this we spontaneously, without an effort and without 
reflection, discover mind and purpose, and this is fitted 
to raise feeling, and unless it is hindered by other ideas 
will raise feeling, not, it may be, very intense, but still 
sufficient to draw us toward the objects, and make us 
feel an interest in them as if they were companions or 



INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 165 

friends. We shrink from the bare desert where there 
are no such objects, and are reconciled to it only by an- 
other feeling being awakened, a sense of freedom. 

(2.) The mind is pleased in noticing the relation of 
whole and parts, particularly of means and ends. On a 
concrete or a complex whole being presented to us we 
are anxious, for the sake of comprehending it, to have it 
resolved into parts, and as scattered objects fall under 
our eye we wonder if they cannot be combined. We 
are gratified when the complicated whole can be broken 
into comprehensible pieces, and when the pieces can be 
made to fit into each other to make up a regular whole. 
A feeling of delight is apt to be called forth when we 
discover a number of independent circumstances combin- 
ing to the production .of one end, as we notice all the 
parts of a machine cooperating to effect its purpose, and 
all parts of the bodily frame, bones, ligaments, and mus- 
cles, to promote the easy movement of a joint and the 
comfort of the animal. When this combination seems to 
take place by chance we simply wonder, but when we 
are made to believe that it is the issue of a purpose and 
plan a feeling of interest arises, and we are apt to say, 
" How beautiful." We have here feelings of beauty 
raised by design, design evidenced by a combination. 

(3.) We are impelled to seek and to notice resem- 
blances, and are delighted when we can coordinate ob- 
jects and gather them into classes. The mind feels bur- 
dened when it is obliged to carry with it innumerable 
particulars. It is relieved when it can put these under 
heads. It is delighted when it discovers, either in art or 
in nature, that order is established, and has evidently 
been intended, say in the arrangement and distribution of 
objects in a room or in a garden, or in the forms of plants 
and animals. A feeling of a high order is gradually gen- 



166 .ESTHETICS. 

dered as we discover and contemplate species, genera, 
orders, and kingdoms in animate nature, and trace a pro- 
gression from man to angel, archangel, and God Himself. 
It is better that this arrangement should not be too for- 
mal, for this might look mechanical, and as if it pro- 
ceeded from unconscious law or blind force ; it raises the 
idea of purpose more certainly where there is variety 
with the uniformity, and freedom is seen subordinated to 
government. 

(4.) There is a kind of sesthetic feeling excited even 
by the perception of the relations of space : there is a sort 
of beauty, as Plato proclaimed, and as all mathemati- 
cians maintain, in certain mathematical figures ; we feel 
it to be so, as we discover their properties. We have 
seen that there is pleasing sensation excited in our ocular 
organism by certain forms caused by the regular vibra- 
tions of the rays of light. But this bodily sensation can 
scarcely be described as Eesthetic till there is some sort 
of spontaneous, and almost unconscious, perception of the 
harmonies by the mind. These harmonies, being noticed, 
will produce a feeling of a very lofty character. Our 
minds are filled with grandeur when we contemplate the 
movements of the moon, the earth, the sun, and the con- 
stellations in their spheres. How interesting to notice 
the same shape in the tree and its leaf : to trace the 
spiral tendency of all the appendages of the plant, of 
buds, leaves, scales, branches ; and to discover in pines 
and firs every part taking a conical shape — the whole 
contour of the tree is a cone, cut off any portion and the 
part cut off is a cone, the fruit organs are cones, and the 
very amenta are conical. Fechner has brought into 
notice, defended, and illustrated a theory of Zeiser as to 
the beauty of the golden section, which in the division 
of a line, say in a cross, makes the smaller division bear 



INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY. 167 

the same proportion to the larger as the larger to the 
whole. 

(5.) The relations of time may raise a feeling of 
beauty. The alternation of day and night, the periodi- 
cal return of the seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and 
winter, the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, and the 
mighty cycles or seons of eternity, all elevate the mind 
as we contemplate them. 

(6.) The contemplation of the relations of quantity is 
an intellectual rather than an emotional exercise. But 
symmetry, balances and counterbalances, equipoises, com- 
pensations, and harmonies, all of which are quantitative, 
have always been supposed to have a place in the senti- 
ment of the beautiful. They are always required, and 
are noticed in architecture. They enter, in the way I 
have described, as ideas to stir up feeling. 

(7.) Is it not because we delight to follow the rela- 
tions of active property that we feel such pleasure in the 
activity which everywhere falls under our eye ? We de- 
light to see the moving cloud, the waving foliage, the 
driving wind, the leaping stream, and to watch the rest- 
less ocean ; we experience a higher emotion when we 
gaze, not only on activity, but on life, on the flying bird, 
the frisking lamb, the gamboling colt, the romping girl, 
the frolicksome boy. Through the law of association 
everything that suggests action and life is apt to be felt 
as interesting and lovely. Ruskin represents vital beauty 
as consisting in the felicitous fulfillment of function in 
living things. 

(8.) There is greater difficulty in showing how causa- 
tion raises any aesthetic feeling. Yet, surely, we are 
pleased when we can trace an effect to its cause and 
notice a cause producing its effect. We are offended 
when we have to look on a mighty apparatus of means 



168 .ESTHETICS. 

set agoing and no corresponding effect following, as when 
a mountain opens to let out a mouse. We are gratified 
when we see a concurrence of agencies evidently estab- 
lished and designed for accomplishing a series of benefi- 
cent effects. What is causation but power ? and our 
minds are enlivened by noticing power everywhere in 
exercise, and a sense of propriety, rising to beauty, is in 
constant exercise when we see power put forth for good. 

There is an incipient feeling of beauty raised by in- 
genious machinery, in which we have a number of forces 
uniting to accomplish an end. But the aesthetic senti- 
ment is apt to be swallowed up in the utilitarian, which 
is the stronger in our nature, that is, we contemplate the 
useful end secured by the engines. A like remark may 
be made in regard to final cause as discoverable every- 
where in nature. Final cause is not the same as efficient 
cause. Final cause is the effect of a number of different 
causes being made to combine to accomplish an evident, 
it may be a benevolent, end. There is a feeling of beauty 
called forth as we notice a conspiracy of means to pro- 
duce a good end : say nerves, muscles, and joints com- 
bining to enable us to move our arm in a variety of di- 
rections ; or rays of light from the sun millions of miles 
away, and coats and humors of the eye and the sensitive 
retina, and the color cones, cooperating so that we see 
the objects of nature with their hues and tints. But as 
we examine these processes our thoughts are apt to be 
absorbed by them, and the aesthetic feeling fades into 
dimness. , 

I might here introduce and dwell upon moral beauty, 
which consists in a harmony of good, in character and 
conduct. But this would imply an inquiry into the office 
of conscience, which. I decline entering upon in this trea- 
tise. 



THE IDEA RAISING THE iESTHETIC FEELING. 169 

SECTION V. 

THE IDEA RAISING THE .ESTHETIC FEELING. 

We 'are not to understand, from what has been said, 
that the sentiment of beauty consists in a pleasant sensa- 
tion or in a perception of relations. These may consti- 
tute the root and stalk, but they are not the flower ; rising 
out of the sensations and relations there must be a feel- 
ing. This feeling, if there be any truth in our analysis 
of emotions, must proceed from an idea. The question 
is, What is the idea ? 

There must, I think, be some perception of relations. 
But such a perception does not of itself call forth the emo- 
tion. Indeed, if we look merely to the relation, and dwell 
upon it, no feeling will come forth. Suppose, for instance, 
that we study the relations of quantity in arithmetic, and 
inquire into complex and recondite causes in philosophic 
speculation, the whole mental energy will be expended 
in the intellectual exercise and there will be no apprecia- 
tion of beauty. In order to the feeling being raised 
there must, so it appears to me, be some idea of adapta- 
tion, harmony, or end, in short, of some mental quality, 
such as order or design. It is only when the perception 
of relations goes on to this' that the aesthetic feeling 
properly so called is evoked. If it stop short of this 
there may be pleasant impressions, profound thought, 
and high admiration, but these do not amount to a sense 
of beauty. It is when the relations are regarded as signs 
of some High quality of intelligence that the feeling is 
called forth ; and the precise nature of the feeling is de- 
termined by the nature of the idea. 

Ruskin has seized on a great truth in his works on the 
Beautiful and has unfolded it in a grand but mystical 
manner. His typical beauty consists of qualities of objects 



170 .ESTHETICS. 

typifying a divine attribute. There is Infinity, the type 
of the divine incomprehensibility ; Unity, the type of the 
divine comprehensibility ; Repose, the type of the divine 
permanence ; Symmetry, the type of the divine justice ; 
Purity, the type of the divine energy ; Moderation, the 
type of government by law. He should, I think, have 
represented Purity as the type of the divine holiness, and 
brought in Life as a type of the divine energy. Alto- 
gether the account is symbolic rather than real. It is 
doubtful if this be an accurate classification and arrange- 
ment of the mental qualities which, perceived in objects, 
call forth the aesthetic feeling. These are, in fact, so 
many and so varied that it is difficult to classify them. 
But Ruskin's symbols bring before us a number of their 
leading characteristics. It has to be added, what Kant 
so emphatically taught, that the highest beauty consists 
in the symbolization of moral good. 

It mi'ght be difficult to specify all that this idea con- 
templates. It may be said, generally, that it is mind dis- 
played in an infinite variety of ways. The more promi- 
nent manifestations have been mentioned and dwelt upon 
by profound thinkers, from Plato downwards, who dis- 
cover in nature and in art symmetry, balancings, coun- 
terpoises, proportions, harmonies, beneficences. Ruskin, 
in his richly-colored though somewhat fanciful works, 
has discovered other forms, such as sacrifice, truth, power, 
life, obedience. The idea of these, not in their abstract 
shape, but in objects, raises emotions which differ and 
vary according to the objects contemplated, or rather the 
quality discerned in the objects. 

It is of moment to notice one very important element 
commonly entering into the emotional idea. We are apt 
to clothe with personality and with feeling the inanimate 
objects in which we are interested. In consequence 



THE IDEA RAISING THE ESTHETIC FEELING. 171 

these objects gather round them the feelings — which 
we have described in the last chapter — directed to ani- 
mate objects. The feelings arising from the contempla- 
tion of living beings, ourselves or others, are the first to 
arise in the mind, and they are almost always stronger 
than those evoked by things without life or feeling. 
But they will go on by association to attach themselves 
to objects in nature and in art which seem to show 
mental qualities, such as power, complacency, and benefi- 
cence. We are apt to personify such objects. We even 
give them a sex : the stronger we think of and represent 
as a male, as a man, and the more delicate and tender 
as a female, a woman, and we call them he and she, as if 
they were human ; thus most nations give the sun mas- 
culine, and the moon feminine qualities. We seem to 
believe momentarily that the objects must have life and 
feeling and intention. We feel as if they possess the 
power they display, and mean the good they confer. 
We come to regard nature as rejoicing or as grieving 
with us. We feel as if the stormy ocean were indignant 
and raving ; as if the tempest were offended and howl- 
ing at us ; as if the sea birds were chiding at us ; as if 
the odors were enjoying their own richness ; and the 
fruits relishing , their own sweetness ; and the flowers 
gazing on their own forms and colors ; and the woods 
resting in their solitudes ; and the streams expressing 
their feelings in their leapings, and in their sighings. 
" They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness : and 
the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are 
clothed with flocks ; the valleys also are covered over 
with corn ; they shout for joy, they also sing." Adorning 
them with such qualities we love them, or are awed by 
them, and all the feelings primarily called up by loving 
objects flow forth toward and collect around them. In 



172 AESTHETICS. 

* 

civilized societies, and among people possessed of culture, 
there is a large amount of this personifying representa- 
tive and sympathetic feeling entering into our contem- 
plation of natural and artistic objects. What is art, 
what are painting, sculpture, and architecture (so far as 
it rises above mere building for shelter) but signs made 
by the brush or the hammer, of objects or things, fitted 
to awaken feeling towards them as if they were living 
realities ? 

We have thus got a starting-point for the sentiment. 
The mental activity is stirred up by the sensation and 
the correlations, and an idea of a high kind is produced, 
accompanied with emotion. This idea raises up other 
ideas according to the laws of association, especially by 
the high law of correlation, bringing in resemblances, 
contrasts, means and ends, causes and consequents, and 
many others, all connected with one another, and tend- 
ing to raise up like feelings. This accounts for the train 
of images all of a sort which Alison brings into such 
prominence, and which swells the river by new streams 
ever flowing in. 

There is, therefore, a truth in the doctrine that all 
beauty arises from association. But it is not just the 
association of ideas spoken of by Hutcheson, Beattie, 
Alison, Jeffrey, and the Scottish school of metaphysicians. 
The idea raised by the correlations perceived is a very 
lofty idea, it is specially the Idea of Plato, of mind in 
objects, of intelligence or beneficence; and it is this idea, 
and not the train of images, that calls forth the true emo- 
tion of beauty. When this idea with its feeling has been 
evoked it will be followed by a whole train of thoughts 
and fancies, in the manner described by Alison, thus con- 
tinuing and enhancing the emotive state, and, in fact, 
making it very complex, and often very intense. 



THE IDEA RAISING THE .ESTHETIC FEELING. 173 

There is a sense, then, in which it may be said that 
there are beautiful objects, and that there is beauty in 
the object : there is a proportion, harmony, or benignancy, 
and it is the business of science to discover what this is. 
But there is a sense in which the beauty is in the mind ; 
for it is when these high qualities are perceived that the 
feeling is evoked. There is a sense in which the aesthetic 
taste is a derivative and a complex one, implying intel- 
lectual and emotive powers, and a process. There is a 
sense in which it is simple and original, for the idea is 
suggested spontaneously, and calls forth the feeling nat- 
urally in all men. 

By this theory we can account for the sameness and 
yet diversities of aesthetic taste among mankind. There 
are faculties in all men which tend toward the produc- 
tion of a sense of beauty, a pleasure felt in certain sounds, 
shapes, and colors, the disposition to observe relations, 
and to discover mind in them, and an emotion ready to 
rise. These things give an aesthetic capacity to all men, 
and lead to a certain community of taste. But, on the 
other hand, each of these implied elements may differ in 
the case of different individuals. Some, for instance, 
have little or no ear for music, some seem to take no in- 
terest in forms or colors of any kind, and people with 
such defective organizations cannot notice the harmonies 
involved, or have the aesthetic idea and feeling thus de- 
rived. In some the intellectual capacity and activity 
are so feeble that they do not notice the correlations, or 
observe them very sluggishly, and the same, or others, 
may have little emotive impressibility. Some, again, 
have a very sensitive organism, capable of reporting the 
nicest distinctions, say of sound. Or they have a quick- 
ness in noticing relations. Or they ever mount up in 
their thoughts to the contemplation of mind manifested 






174 .ESTHETICS. 

in matter. Or they are susceptible of deep emotion 
when high ideas are presented to them. When there are 
such differences in constitution we see how there must 
be differences in the strength of the aesthetic sense. 

There will thus be a diversity in the tastes. This 
arises from the absence or presence of the various ele- 
ments, and from their relative measftre of strength. A 
man without a musical ear can have no relish for tunes, 
but may have a strong passion for colors. The man of 
dull capacity may not be able to discern the harmonies 
that enter into the higher forms of beauty in art and nat- 
ure. The man of low. moral tone may not be capable of 
forming elevating ideas. The man of heavy temperament 
may never rise to rapture on any subject. Then, differ- 
ent individuals have, fortunately, a taste for different ob- 
jects. Some can enjoy beauty of art but not beauty of 
scenery. Some love flower painting but have no pleasure 
in gazing on historical paintings. Some discover a beauty 
in this man or that woman which others cannot discern. 
This difference of taste arises mainly from the relative 
strength of the elements which produce the sentiment, 
from the nature of the organism in some cases, and the 
aptitude to observe or not to observe certain relations, or 
to rise or not to rise to noble ideas. 

The sense of beauty differs at different periods of the 
age of the individual, and of the race. The fact is, the 
mind requires to be educated up to the perception of 
the higher kinds of beauty. Mere physical beauty may 
be felt by all who have the appropriate bodily organ, by 
the child, the boor, the savage. But the recognition of 
nobler forms of loveliness implies intelligence and, possi- 
bly, a careful training. The child, the peasant, can enter 
thoroughly into the spirit of the simple Scotch, or Irish, 
or Negro melodies, but, while he may wonder at them, 



THE IDEA RAISING THE .ESTHETIC FEELING. 175 

lias no appreciation of the grand Italian and German 
oratorios. He may have a pleasure in looking on a rich 
plain or a grassy bank, but he is astonished when he 
hears persons raving so about mountain peaks or passes ; 
for himself he would rather be safe on the level ground 
below. Our rapturous lovers of nature in these times 
are astonished to find how little there is of rapt admira- 
tion of scenery in the classical writers. Homer, speaking 
of rich plains, represents them as good for feeding asses. 
There is a poetry, such as that of Robert Burns, which 
comes home to the hearts of all ; it is the same to some 
extent with the poetry of Homer, Shakespeare, Gold- 
smith, Scott, and Longfellow. It is different with some 
other poetry, such as that of Spenser and Milton, which 
can be enjoyed only by the educated ; and still more so 
with the poetry of Wordsworth, and Keats, and Tenny- 
son, and Hawthorne, and Browning, which can be thor- 
oughly relished only by minds addicted to reflection and 
capable of following more refined and recondite analogies. 
As a nation becomes more highly educated there will be 
a greater number of persons in it capable of relishing the 
higher forms of beauty. This will be greatly promoted 
by the establishment of schools of art and design, open 
to all ; and by the habit of traveling annually among 
the grander scenes of nature, and visiting galleries of 
painting and sculpture ; and it will be furthered most 
effectively by diffusing a higher education among the 
great mass of the people, who will thereby have a greater 
number of ideas, and be prepared to discover those rap- 
idly discerned relations which are implied in the exer- 
cise of the aesthetic sense. 



176 -ESTHETICS. 

SECTION VI. 

WHAT IS THE TRUE THEORY OF BEAUTY? 

There are some agreements and many differences 
among those who have speculated on this subject. The 
sentiment is so delicate, is often so fugitive, arises in such 
different circumstances, and is so complex in its associa- 
tions that it is difficult to determine its precise nature. 
Some hold that it is, or at least that at the basis of the 
whole there is, a simple, unresolvable feeling. Others 
argue that it differs so widely in different persons, ages, 
and nations that it must be derived from other princi- 
ples, or be the result of circumstances. Let us combine 
the results that have been reached in the course of our 
observation and reflection, and see if they correspond and 
come up to our actual experience. 

In certain cases our sensitive organism is affected, but 
in a way that indicates relations and harmonies which 
are perceived, often in an occult way, by the mind ; such 
is the case with colors, sounds, forms. In other cases the 
order is noticed without there being any organic or extra- 
organic act or affection, say an order of unity with differ- 
ence, or a concurrence of powers. Still, all this does not 
amount to beauty, or the emotion of beauty. But this pre- 
pares the way for an idea which calls forth the emotion. 
Spontaneously we discover the result of mind, of intelli- 
gence, of design, perhaps of benevolence, in these adapted 
relations. This idea raises up emotion, which constitutes 
the true aesthetic feeling. 

Regarded ' in this light, the sentiment of beauty may 
vary infinitely by reason of the mixture of the elements. 
The smoke curling from the cottage, in the sweet vales, 
say, of county Wicklow or Kilkenny, in Ireland, deepens 
the sentiment of quiet and peacefulness as we cherish 



WHAT IS THE TRUE THEORY OF BEAUTY ? 177 

the idea of happy dwellers within. The Scotch and 
Swiss lakes are seen to sleep so quietly in scenes of 'ter- 
ror. The deep gorges in the fiords .of Norway, and of 
the Saginaw in Canada, guarded so strongly on both 
sides, are relieved by the living streams in their bosom. 
The awfulness of the cataract is often illuminated by the 
sheen and sparkle of the waters, which may be irradiated, 
as at Niagara and the Staubbach, by the rainbow on its 
spray, compared by Byron to love and madness. Often 
is there life communicated to a scene in nature, which 
would otherwise be hard or dull, by a tree, or a plant, or 
a little flower clinging to the rocks, or coming out of the 
crevices modestly to show its beauties and timidly to 
look for a brief season upon the day and the scene around 
it. These fleecy clouds lying on our hills and dales add 
to their loveliness as our day-dreams give a freshness to 
our dull habitual life. Scenes of terror are often soft- 
ened by the leafy foliage in which they are embosomed. 
The beauties of the Rhine are greatly enhanced by the 
antiquated towers associated with adventure, and the 
vineyards on its banks. In all such cases the sentiment 
is intensified by the unexpectedness of the object, by the 
dissimilarity and contrast. In other cases all the objects 
conspire to produce one effect ; the mountains in deep 
shadow, the steep precipice, the turreted rock may all be 
before us and in one view. The howling wind, the agi- 
tated wave, the ship driven helplessly, all enhance our 
idea of the power of these moving elements. It has to 
be added that there may be associations which completely 
counteract and suppress the sesthetic feeling. The man 
weighed down with earthly cares, or with sorrow, cannot 
appreciate beauty. Solomon tells us how vain it is to 
sing songs to a heavy heart. 
12 



178 AESTHETICS. 

SECTION VII. 

INFLUENCE OF ASSOCIATION ON TASTE. 

There is truth in the doctrine which resolves beauty 
into association of idea. Alison maintains that the sen- 
timent of beauty is not " a simple but a complex emo- 
tion ; that it involves in all cases the production of some 
simple, or the exercise of some moral, affection ; and, 
secondly, the consequent excitement of a peculiar exercise 
of the imagination ; " and that " the peculiar pleasure of 
the beautiful or sublime is only felt when these two 
effects are conjoined, and the complex emotions pro- 
duced." It is thus that " the gay lustre of a morning in 
spring, or the mild radiance of a summer evening, the 
savage majesty of a wintry storm, or the wild magnifi- 
cence of a tempestuous ocean give rise to a variety of 
images, and the sentiment of beauty is composed of the 
pleasures of emotion and the pleasures of imagination." 
There is truth in this theory, but it is not the whole 
truth. It accounts for so much of the mental phenome- 
non. It shows how the feeling is prolonged and intensi- 
fied by the image after image that is raised up. But 
it does not seem to me to embrace the whole. It does 
not show very clearly how the feeling is started at first, 
nor how the images pursue a certain train, all fitted to 
call forth emotions of one character. We have to find 
something in the object to evoke the feeling, and to con- 
tinue the images, all of a certain kind. This we find in 
the sensation in the case of music, color, and form, and 
in the perception of relations indicative of mind in all 
cases. We thus reach the idea which raises the feeling, 
and which calls up by association other ideas of a like 
kind to produce their special feelings, and thus carry on 
the mental affection indefinitely. 



COMPLEXITY OF THE AESTHETIC AFFECTION. 179 

Every one knows that association may give an artificial 
beauty to objects. I knew a girl who was acquainted 
with only one lady of high rank, and as she was affected 
with palsy the girl learned to associate lady-like manners 
with shaking, and so indulged in it. An unpleasant 
association may overcome a very decided taste. I know 
that a powerful relish for a certain kind of food may be 
counteracted by its being painful in the digestion, so 
that the food is now regarded with aversion. It is often 
remarked that familiarity may remove the first impres- 
sions left by ugliness. People offensive to the bodily 
sense may come to be delighted in because of their 
amiable or noble qualities. It is the same with scenes 
of nature ; a man's birth-place may have no beauty in 
itself, but his heart, if he have a heart, ever warms to- 
wards it. 

In such associations we transfer our feelings to the 
objects. 

" Sweet bird ! thy bower is ever green, 
Thy sky is ever clear ; 
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, 
No winter in thy year." 

Such would be our feelings in the bower; we transfer 
them even to inanimate objects. 

" His very foot has mnsic in 't 
As he comes up the stair." 

SECTION VIII. 

COMPLEXITY OF THE .ESTHETIC AFFECTION. 

Viewed in a wide sense the sentiment of beauty is a 
very complex one, embracing such elements as sensations, 
intellectual perceptions, ideas, memories, associations, feel- 
ings. There may be more or fewer of these in any aes- 
thetic state. When they combine and concur the senti- 



180 .ESTHETICS. 

ment is a very powerful one, and the object is regarded 
as very beautiful. Thus there are scenes in which every 
sensation is pleasant, balmy air, blue sky, lovely flowers, 
where we see power working in that water-fall, and con- 
spiring agents, and ideas of plenty and happiness sug- 
gested, as that river, rising in ruggedness, is seen running 
into fertile plains. There are paintings in which the 
coloring is rich, the scenes illustrative of highest charac- 
ter, and associated with great historical events. Such 
scenes and pictures draw all eyes, and attract all hearts, 
and are constantly visited by persons capable of the aes- 
thetic sentiment. 

Very frequently some of the elements only are in ex- 
ercise, or some of them are strong, and others are weak. 
As the feeling is determined by the idea, and the idea 
gets its force from the appetence, to which it corresponds, 
the sentiment takes the special color of the ideas. It is 
the aim of some authors, and of some artists, to furnish a 
set of pictures, all which raise only one kind of idea, say 
of sorrow, or sympathy, as by Sterne, in his " Sentimental 
Journey," and Mackenzie, in his " Man of Feeling," and 
the emotion is often made very intense. But if it is not 
relieved in some way the mind is led, from the very 
stretching and tension to which it is subjected, to break 
away from it. Our most successful painters furnish some 
kind of escape from dismal or painful scenes, as Rem- 
brandt, by the light being made to shine in, as he used to 
see when a boy, in his father's mill, or as others do, by 
introducing an innocent, smiling child, or a bright-eyed 
plant, into scenes of blood or terror. A judicious intro- 
duction of such relief is often the mark of a high artist. 
Shakespeare is true to nature when he places so near 
each other dignity and buffoonery, the king and the 
clown, crying and laughing, though I think he often so 
mingles them as to become grotesque. 



THE PICTURESQUE. 181 

In some cases the sensation, say of gorgeous color in a 
landscape or a painting, or of luscious sound in music, 
may overwhelm the more intellectual elements. Quite 
as frequently the intellectual exercise, the perception of 
relations, may be carried too far and rest in itself, and 
arrest the higher idea and feeling ; it is thus that a criti- 
cal spirit may lessen the enjoyment, and the connoisseur 
may have less pleasure than the common observer in 
looking at a work of art. On the other hand, new, and 
often higher, beauties may be discovered in a building, or 
a landscape, by a more careful inspection, which detects 
farther harmonies. In some the idea of mental qualities 
bulks so largely that it fills the eye to the exclusion of 
everything else, and they gaze on order and on love. In 
others the feeling, say that raised by music, puts the 
whole soul in a state of excitement, and very much stops 
contemplation. In very many cases the train of associa- 
tion runs in so strong a current that it carries all before 
it. 

SECTION IX. 

THE PICTURESQUE. 

This is not the same as the beautiful. That bevy of 
young ladies standing on one of the promontories of the 
Antrim coast, or of the Isle of Skye, and breaking into 
raptures, and crying, " How lovely, how lovely ! " that 
company of mercantile youths, who have reached the Tell 
Country, at the upper end of the Lake Lucerne, and are 
looking up to the horrid overhanging masses of rock and 
snow, and exclaim, " How beautiful, how beautiful ! " 
have certainly not been instructed (in whatever else they 
may have been) in the science of taste. The peculiarity 
of such scenes does not consist in their beauty, which 
always soothes and softens the mind, but in their being 
picturesque or sublime, and so rousing and stimulating it. 






182 ESTHETICS. 

The picturesque may best be explained by describing 
it as picture-like. Everything that the mind can vividly 
picture is picturesque. The scenes which possess this 
quality are specially addressed to the phantasy or imag- 
ing power of the mind. They stand before us with a 
marked form or a vivid outline. The mass of objects on 
the earth are not of this exciting character. Just as the 
ground colors of nature are soft or neutral, so the earth's 
common scenes are irregular, or simply rounded in their 
outline. Yet here and there arise picture-like objects 
from the midst of them, to arrest the eye and print 
themselves on the fancy. It may be noticed that the 
grass and grain of the earth raise up their sharp points 
from the surface to catch our eye. A still larger pro- 
portion of objects above us, and standing between us and 
the sky, have a clear outline or vivid points. This is 
the case with the leaves, and the coma of trees, and with 
not a few rocks and mountains. Rising out from quieter 
scenes, they enliven, without exciting the mind, and tend 
to raise that earthward look of ours and direct it to 
heaven, to which they point. 

The wide extending English lawn and the American 
prairie are very lovely, but are not picturesque, for they 
want rising points and sharp outlines. For the same 
cause the boundless forests of Germany and America, 
though they have a sort of sublimity, cannot be described 
as having the quality of which I am speaking. Mount- 
ains, such as we have in Ireland and Scotland, will be- 
come sublime merely by their huge bulk or towering 
height, but are not picturesque unless they be peaked, 
jagged, or precipitous. All that has a, sharp point, or a 
sharp edge ; all that has a ridge, or is rugged ; all that 
is steep or perpendicular, is especially fitted to leave its 
sharply defined image in the mind. The very Lombardy 



THE PICTURESQUE. 183 

poplar helps to relieve the tame plain. The church- 
tower or spire fixes the whole village in the memory. 
The wind-mill, though not the most improved piece of 
machinery, and though the movements of its outstretched 
arms, as they forever pursue without overtaking each 
other, are somewhat awkward, is, notwithstanding, a most 
picturesque object as seen between us and the sky. The 
ship, with its pointed masts and its white sails stretched 
out to the breeze, makes the bay on which it sails look 
more lively and interesting. More imposing, there are 
the bold mountains which cleave the sky, and the sea- 
worn rocks which have faced a thousand storms and are 
as defiant as ever. How placid does the lake sleep in the 
midst of them, sheltered by their overhanging eminences 
and guarded by their turreted towers : heaven above 
looks down on it with a smile and is seen reflected from 
its bosom. 

There are narratives, there are tales, there are poems 
which may be happily characterized as picturesque. Of 
this description is the vivid account of the patriarchal 
life in the book of Genesis : we see, as it were, the per- 
sons and the scenes before us. Such, too, are the narra- 
tives of Herodotus, in which he makes the condition and 
the history of ancient Egypt and other eastern countries 
stand so picture-like before us. In our own language 
we have many picturesque writers. Defoe makes every 
scene so lively that we feel as if we were looking upon it, 
and every incident so life-like that we feel as if we were 
mingling in it. Sir Walter Scott, too, sets before us his 
old castles and dungeon-keeps, his heroes and heroines, 
so graphically that we cannot help feeling as if we were 
spectators and actors in the scenes, and not mere listeners 
to a tale conjured up by the imagination of the author. 
It may be observed of all such picturesque descriptions 



184 ^ESTHETICS. 

that tliey are extremely simple, both in maimer and 
and style ; the authors make the persons and events stand 
out clearly and distinctly before us, like a statue upon a 
column seen between us and a bright sky. 

SECTION X. 

THE LUDICROUS. 

Hutcheson says that it is difficult to speak gravely of 
laughtei-, yet the gravest writers have discoursed of it 
and with amazing gravity. Aristotle, so fond of bring- 
ing all subjects within the grasp of his definitions, has 
denned it, with some truth but certainly not with the 
full truth, as " some error in truth or propriety, but at 
the same time neither painful nor pernicious." Cicero de- 
scribes it as "that which without impropriety notes and 
exposes an impropriety," and " a sudden conversion into 
nothing of a long-raised and highly-wrought expecta- 
tion." This definition may fitly apply to some kinds of 
wit, but certainly not to all. The same, remark applies 
to the definition of Hobbes, who gives the ludicrous a 
very selfish origin, and makes it always imply pride, 
whereas wit and humor have often a very innocent and 
kindly origin. According to him " it is a sudden glory 
or a sense of eminency above others or our former 
selves." Upon the whole, I am best pleased with the 
definition given by Samuel Johnson in his " Life of Cow- 
ley : " " Wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, 
may be more rigorously and philosophically considered 
as a kind of discordia concors, a combination of dissimilar 
images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things 
apparently unlike." It certainly often arises from the 
discovery of some unexpected resemblance or relation 
between things in every other respect dissimilar. But it 



THE LUDICROUS. 185 

might be equally well defined as a discors concordia, and 
arises from the discovery of unseen differences in things 
which seem identical. A poor, weak man in rags falls 
into a ditch and we commiserate him and hasten to help 
him. A vain fool extravagantly dressed tumbles into 
the same ditch and we are amused and allow him to 
escape from the mire as best he can. In the former case 
there was no incongruity between the person and his 
plight, in the other case there is, and the sense of the 
ludicrous is awakened. Punning, which is not the high- 
est kind of wit, consists in giving a word a new and un- 
expected application. Parody, as, for instance, that on 
the "Burial of Sir John Moore," entertains us because 
we are ever comparing the parody with the original 
piece and noting their incongruity. An incident which 
would in no way affect us in ordinary circumstances will 
often raise irrepressible laughter in solemn or sacred 
positions. A very small event occurring in a church 
will raise a titter, while the same occurrence happening 
outside would never be noticed. The only way of secur- 
ing the return of composure in such cases is to allow the 
laugh to get its proper utterance and to return to our 
proper business immediately after. I have seen a minis- 
ter and a thousand grave people greatly discomposed by 
a little bird coming into a church and hopping from pew 
to pew, and pew to pulpit, with a solemn beadle chasing 
it and ever failing to catch it ; the same bird hopping 
outside would have raised no such laughter. It is owing 
to the circumstance that wit arises from the perception 
of incongruity that it is so easy to raise laughter by a 
familiar or low treatment of sacred subjects. All such 
wit has in it the essence of profanity, and should be in- 
stantly restrained. Laughter is raised when a mighty 
cause produces a weak effect, when great pretension 



186 AESTHETICS. 

issues in utter failure, when loud boasting ends in a 
public humiliation. Kant speaks of the ridiculous being 
called forth by the sudden transformation of a tense ex- 
pectation into nothing. 

It may be doubted whether philosophers have suc- 
ceeded in giving a thoroughly adequate definition of wit, 
but there is a preacher who once succeeded, in the pulpit, 
in giving a perfect description of it, though I do not see 
how he could have done so without exciting the laughter 
as well as the admiration of his congregation. The fol- 
lowing, from one of Isaac Barrow's sermons, is, in respect 
both of thought and language, one of the most compre- 
hensive passages in the English language : " First it 
may be demanded what the thing we speak of is, or what 
this facetiousness doth import. To which question I 
might reply as Democritus did to him who asked the def- 
inition of a man. 'T is that which we all see and know ; 
any one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance 
than I can inform him by description. It is indeed a 
thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many 
shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously 
apprehended by several eyes and judgments, that it 
seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion 
thereof than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define 
the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat 
allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of 
a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale ; sometimes 
it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from 
the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their 
sound ; sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous 
expression; sometimes it lurketh under an odd simili- 
tude ; sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart 
answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in 
cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection; 



THE LUDICROUS. 187 

sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a 
tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, 
in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute 
nonsense ; sometimes a scenical representation of persons 
or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture 
passeth for it; sometimes an affected simplicity, some- 
times a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being ; some- 
times it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is 
strange, sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious mat- 
ter to the purpose ; often it consisteth in one knows not 
what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its 
ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answer- 
able to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of 
language. It is, in short, a manner of speaking out 
of the simple and plain way (such as reason teacheth 
and proveth things by), which, by a pretty surprising 
uncouthness in conceit or expression, doth affect and 
amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breed- 
ing some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as sig- 
nifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special 
felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit 
more than vulgar ; it seeming to argue a rare quickness 
of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable ; 
a notable skill, that he can dexterously accommodate 
them to the purpose before him ; together with a lively 
briskness of humor not apt to damp those sportful flashes 
of imagination." 1 

1 Will any one after reading this passage allow that all these exercises 
of mind can be accounted for by a nervous energy 1 Spencer accounts for 
the ludicrous thus : " A large amount of nervous energy, instead of being 
allowed to expend itself in producing an equivalent amount of the new 
thoughts and emotions, which are nascent, is suddenly checked in its flow." 
" The excess must discharge itself in some other direction, and there re- 
sults an afflux through the motor nerves to various classes of the muscles, 
producing the half-convulsive actions we term laughter." Univ. Prog. 



188 .ESTHETICS. 

Every one perceives that there is a difference between 
wit and humor. Can the difference be pointed out and 
expressed ? I believe that it can. Both arise from per- 
ceived incongruities, but in the case of hunmr the incon- 
gruity has some relation to human character, whereas 
wit may arise from incongruities in thought, in word, in 
action. In humor we find, or p]ace, or conceive persons 
in ridiculous situations or attitudes. Humor, therefore, 
implies some appreciation of human feeling. Hence it 
is that humor, however strange it may seem, is very com- 
monly associated with sympathy. It was remarked by 
Sir Walter Scott of Robert Burns, when he appeared in 
Edinburgh, that in his conversation,,, there was a strange 
combination of pathos and l^tnort I am sure that these 
two often go together, hunjpr and sympathy. The man 
who never laughs, or who ^ftmot laugh heartily, I sus- 
pect is deficient in tenderness of heart, while he may be 
characterized by many vir^a^s. Certain it is that in the 
writings of many of our great authors pathos and humor 
are found in the closest connection. I believe that the 
fountains of smiles and tears lie nearer each other than 
most people imagine. 

" We have seen that the muscles which operate upon the mouth are 
distinguishable into two classes, — those which surround and control 
the lips, and those which oppose them, and draw the mouth widely 
open. The effect of a ludicrous idea is to relax the former, and to 
contract the latter; hence, by a lateral stretching of the mouth and 
a raising of the cheek to the lower eyelid, a smile is produced. The 
lips are, of all the features, the most susceptible of action, and the 
most direct, index of the feelings. If the idea be exceedingly ridicu- 
lous, it is in vain that we endeavor to restrain this relaxation, and 
to compress the lips. The muscles concentring to the mouth pre- 
vail; they become more and more influenced; they retract the lips, 
and display the teeth. The cheeks are more powerfully drawn up, 
the eyes wrinkled, and the eye almost concealed. The lachrymal 
gland within the orbit is compressed by the pressure on the eyeball, 



THE SUBLIME. 189 

and the eye is suffused with tears." (Bell, Essay vi.) " During ex- 
cessive laughter the whole body is often thrown backward and shakes, 
or is almost convulsed ; the respiration is much disturbed ; the head 
and face become gorged with blood, with the veins distended; and 
the orbicular muscles are spasmodically contracted in order to protect 
the eyes. Tears are freely shed. Hence, as formerly remarked, it 
. is scarcely possible to point out any difference between the tear- 
stained face of a person after a paroxysm of excessive laughter and 
after a bitter crying fit. It is probably due to the close similarity of 
the spasmodic movements caused by these widely different emotions 
that hysteric patients alternately cry and laugh with violence, and 
that young children sometimes pass suddenly from the one to the 
other state." (Darwin, c. viii.) " When the angles of the mouth are 
depressed in grief the eyebrows are not elevated at the outer angles 
as in laughter. When a smile plays around the mouth, or the cheek 
is raised in laughter, the brows are not rufHed as in grief." (Bell, 
Essay vi.) 

SECTION XL 

THE SUBLIME. 

Every one feels that the sentiment of the sublime 
differs from that of the beautiful. The one pleases and 
delights, the other overawes and yet elevates. 

It seems to me that whatever tends to carry away the 
mind into the Infinite raises that idea and feeling which 
are called the sublime. The idea embraces two elements, 
or, rather, has two sides. First the infinite is conceived 
as something beyond our largest phantasm, that is, image, 
and beyond our widest concept or general notion. We 
exert our imaging and conceiving power to the utmost ; 
but as we do so we are led to perceive that there is vastly 
more beyond. Whatever calls forth this exercise is sub- 
lime, that is, excites that special feeling which we have 
all experienced, and which we call sublime. 

It is not all that I see of the British that so impresses 
me, said Hyder Ali, but what I do not see, the power 
beyond the seas, the power in reserve. It was his belief 



190 .ESTHETICS. 

in a power beyond, in a power unseen, which, so struck 
the mind of the Mahratta chief. The feeling of sublimity 
is always called forth in this way, that is, by whatever 
fills its imaging power and yet suggests something far- 
ther, something greater and higher. A great height, 
such as a great mountain, Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, 
ChimborazO, raises the idea, and with it the correspond- 
ing feeling. The discoveries of astronomy stir up the 
emotion, because they carry the mind into the immeas- 
urable depths of space while yet we feel that we are not 
at its verge. The discoveries of geology exalt the mind 
in much the same way, by the long vistas opened of ages 
of which we cannot detect the beginning. Every vast 
display of power calls forth the overawing sentiment ; we 
notice agencies which are great, arguing a power which 
is greater. It is thus that we are moved by the howl of 
the tempest and the raging of the sea, both, it may be, 
producing terrible havoc, in the prostration of the trees 
of the forest or in the wreck of vessels. The roar of the 
water-fall, the musical crash of the avalanche, the mut- 
tering and the prolonged growl of the thunder, the sudden 
shaking of the stable ground when the earth quakes, all 
these fill our minds, in our endeavor to realize them, and 
raise apprehension of unknown effects to follow. The 
forked lightning raises the thought of a bolt shot by an 
almighty hand. Thick masses of cloud or of darkness 
may become sublime by suggesting depths which we 
cannot sound. The vault of heaven is always a grand 
object when serene ; as we look into it we feel that we 
are looking into the boundless. A clear, bright space in 
the sky, whether in a natural scene or in a painting, is 
an outlet, by which the mind may go out into the limit- 
less. We are exhilarated by the streaks of light in the 
morning sky, partly, no doubt, from the associated hope 



THE SUBLIME. 191 

of the coming day, but still more because of the suggested 
region beyond, from which the luminary of day comes. 
I explain in much the same way the feeling of grandeur 
awakened by the sun setting in splendor in the evening 
sky, our souls go after him into the region to which he 
is going. In much the same way there is always a pro- 
found feeling of awe associated with the serious contem- 
plation of the death of a fellow man ; it is, if we view 
it aright, the departure of a soul into an unending eter- 
nity. 

There are still grander scenes presented in the moral 
world, raising the feeling of sublimity, because reveal- 
ing an immense power and suggesting an immeasurable 
power. We are affected with a feeling of wonder and 
awe when we contemplate Abraham lifting the knife 
to slay his son, and the old Roman delivering his son to 
death because guilty of a crime ; we think of, and yet 
cannot estimate, the strong moral purpose needed to over- 
come the natural affection which was burning all the 
while in the bosoms of the fathers. The commander 
burning his ships that he may have no retreat, tells of a 
will and a purpose which cannot be conquered. We feel 
overawed, and yet exalted, when we read of the Holland- 
ers being ready to open the sluices which guard their 
country and let in the ocean to overflood it, and of the 
Russians setting fire to their capital, rather than have 
their liberties trampled on. Who can read the account 
in Plato's "Phsedo" of the death of Socrates without say- 
ing, How grand, how sublime ! and we do so because we 
would estimate, and yet cannot estimate, the grand pur- 
pose which enabled him to retain such composure amidst 
scenes so much fitted to agitate and to overwhelm. His- 
tory discloses a yet more sublime scene in Jesus, patient 
and benignant under the fearful and mysterious load laid 



192 .ESTHETICS. 

upon Him. " Socrates died as a hero, but Jesus Christ 
died as a God." 

But there is a second element in infinity. It is such 
that nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from 
it ; in other words, incapable of augmentation or diminu- 
tion. Under this aspect it is the Perfect. As an exam- 
ple we have " the law of the Lord, which is perfect." 
Kant's language has often been quoted, as to the two 
things which impressed him with sublimity, the starry 
heavens and the law of God. If Kant had ever seen the 
ocean he would have added it to the others, because of 
its extending beyond our vision. But neither the starry 
heavens nor the expanded ocean present bof;h aspects of 
infinity, which are combined in only one. object, and that 
is God, all whose attributes are perfections, which as we 
attempt to compass them we are lost, because of the in- 
finitude of Him who is " high throned above all height." 

section xn. 

BEAUTY IN NATURAL OBJECTS. 

Every object in nature, every man and woman, every 
scene, bare sand or stagnant marsh, is not to be re- 
garded as beautiful. It is in the midst of the common- 
place that interesting objects come forth to please us, 
here and there, and everywhere. Let us look at those 
natural scenes which are entitled to be regarded as beau- 
tiful, picturesque, or sublime. 

In the grassy slope, in the rich plain waving with 
grain, there is first a pleasant sensation and then the idea 
is raised of plenty, of fertility, and of the comfort of liv- 
ing beings ; and we are inclined to stand still, or sit down, 
and contemplate it, allowing the thoughts to flow on 
complacently. We like to see a road through it, not 



BEAUTY IN NATURAL OBJECTS. 193 

straight, but winding, suggesting that one might follow 
it at his own free or, if he list, capricious will. In river 
scenery the flowing of the stream, the sheen and spark- 
ling of the waters, give the idea of action and of life. 
The picture may be greatly enlivened by the pellucidness 
of the water, by the purling and leaping of the streams, 
as in the hill country of Scotland and New England, or 
by retired bays and wooded islets in the great Ameri- 
can rivers. In the broad stream or ocean bay, as, for in- 
stance, in the St. Lawrence, there is often a great beauty 
in the flitting lights and shadows, in the beams lying 
visibly on the waters, and in the varying colors, silvern 
and golden, of the surface, and the whole rendered more 
picturesque by the white sail moving across it. The sky, 
when clear, and of its own blue color, is always lovely ; 
it is a sheltering canopy over us. The clouds hang over 
our world like drapery, and interest us by their levity, 
by their movableness, by their varied shapes or colors, 
often splendidly in harmony, as dividing the beam between 
them. These same clouds may awe us as in thick 
masses they forebode tempests, crashing and destructive. 
As the sun sets there is often a pleasant glow, and the 
scene is associated in our minds with rest after labor, re- 
pose after a journey, and his retinue of clouds, so richly 
dressed, raises the thought of splendor and magnificence, 
and our soul goes after him when he sinks, as it goes 
after the dying Clmstian into the better world. 

In the quiet valley, especially when, as in Switzerland, 
it is defended by lofty mountains, the feeling is of rest, 
protection, security from danger, peace without, emblem 
of peace within. Much the same sentiment is called 
forth as an echo by the sweet lake, like Loch Katrine, 
sleeping in the midst of guardian rocks. The bold, hard 
rock which has withstood the elements for a thousand 

13 



194 -ESTHETICS. 

years, and is as defiant as ever, is associated with endur- 
ance and power of resistance, like the man of strong 
moral purpose who has withstood the winds and waves 
of temptation and the attacks of foes. The scars upon 
its face, like those of the warrior received in battle, the 
water-worn channels, the torn detritus at its base, all go 
to raise the idea and deepen the feeling. The twisted 
structure shows what torture it has come through, and 
yet been preserved. The ravine is the evident result of 
some terrible disruption of nature, and looks like a mys- 
terious hiding-place provided for a refuge. The preci- 
pice gives the idea of height unapproachable and the 
danger of falling into the depth below, from which, how- 
ever, we are safe because of our position ; if we are not, 
the sublimity vanishes in the sense of fear. An inspiring 
interest is often awakened by the "way being seemingly 
shut in by forbidding heights, which, however, open as we 
advance, and exciting our curiosity as to what is to be 
disclosed. In the same way the mountain pass allures 
us on by promising the view of a region beyond, which 
seemed to be shut out from us. In river rapids the idea 
is of impelling force, and of the cataract of awful and ir- 
resistible power and determination, as exhibited, for in- 
stance, in, what seems to me the most impressive point at 
the Niagara Falls, the terrible rush towards the ledge is- 
suing in the inevitable fall. The breaking of the cold 
and ice of winter in the freshet, and the rush and the 
boiling of the relieved waters, is symbolic of the bursting 
forth of the caged spirit into freedom and action. 

Beauty of Trees. A boy gets hold of a fir cone ; he 
reckons it a prize and feels a pleasure in contemplating 
it. He cannot tell how it should interest him, but the 
scientific man should be able to say. He handles it and 
turns it round and round, and preserves it among his toys, 



BEAUTY IN NATURAL OBJECTS. 195 

and brings it out from time to time to gaze on it. The 
scientific observer may easily notice that around its sur- 
face are two sets of spiral whorls, one going to the right 
and the other to the left, each to carry the eye round the 
cone, and that they cross each other and produce regular 
rhomboidal figures, which differ in each species of plant. 
The boy does not observe all this, but he is impressed 
with the general regularity, and with the special forms, 
with the unity and variety, and with the proportions and 
harmony, and an incipient aesthetic feeling is started. 

The order seen so easily and clearly in the fir cone 
also appears, though less obviously and with greater com- 
plexity, on the tree, and is meant to be noticed by full- 
grown boys. Every fir-tree, indeed every coniferous 
plant, tends to take a definite form, and that form is the 
same as that of its cone, that is, conical, with the branches 
lengthening till they produce a graceful swell and then 
shortening till they come to a point. The carefully ob- 
servant eye will notice that the leaves go round the stem 
and the branches round the trunk, as the scales do round 
the cones, in two sets of spirals crossing each other. But 
in order to our being impressed with the beauty of the 
tree it is not necessary to notice all this scientifically, it 
is enough that we have a general perception of the har- 
mony. 

Coming now to the leafy trees we will at once notice 
that every tree bears a leaf after its kind ; and you can- 
not by any artifice make any tree bear a leaf of a differ- 
ent kind, — make an elm bear the leaf of an oak. All 
these have a beauty of some kind, a graceful curvature of 
outline, and a correspondence of side to side, even when 
the two sides are not alike, there being a counterpoise to 
the inequality. Then it can be shown that every tree is 
apt, if not interfered with, to take the form of its leaf. 



196 ESTHETICS. 

Thus some leaves have leaf stalks shorter or longer 
while others have none ; and it will be found that the 
trees on which the first class grow have an unbranched 
trunk shorter or longer, whereas the others have none, 
but are bushy from the base. It can be shown that the 
angle at which the branches go off from the stems is the 
same as that at which the veins go off from the leaf, and 
that the curvilinear outline of the tree and of every 
branch is much the same as that of the leaf. I mention 
these things to show that there is an observable order in 
the shape and structure of every tree, in the arrangement 
of its branches and its contour, which at once impresses 
the observer, and calls forth an impression which de- 
serves to be called aesthetic. A normally formed tree in 
winter covered with frostwork, and with the outline fully 
exposed, is felt by all to be a beautiful object. The exact 
order is not so observable in the tree in summer because 
of the leafy covering ; still it strikes us insensibly without 
our being able to detect the elements, and the graceful 
covering of foliage is felt to be its crowning ornament. 
It is to be allowed that while every tree takes its special 
form this may be interfered with in a number of ways, — 
by its being crowded by other trees, by its being bent or 
broken by the wind, eaten by animals, or cut untastefully 
by men. Still it shows its native tendency even when it 
is obstructed, and it is beautiful as a tree when it is left 
to grow into its natural shape. The beauty of the tree 
may be much embellished by its blossoms in spring and 
its fruit in autumn, adding beauty of coloring to beauty 
of outline. 

Even where it is not an artificial — which is a false — 
taste, there is far too little attention paid in most of our 
parks or demesnes to the planting of trees so as to show 
their full amount of beauty. Every tree in a lawn should 



BEAUTY IN NATURAL OBJECTS. 197 

be placed sufficiently far apart from every other to show 
its separate form, and allow the eye to repose on the lawn 
between. In a large park trees of every shape should 
have a place: some tall and some short, some tapering 
others swelling, some rising up high and straight and 
pointing to the sky, others wide spreading and bending 
over the earth to shelter us from exposure to heat or storm, 
and furnishing a quiet retreat for meditation ; some with 
a pale, others with a dark green color, all arranged with 
such uniformity as to show it has been effected by art 
though not by artifice. And whenever a tree appears of 
an abnormal shape, made by brute or by man, or by a 
neighboring tree through our neglect being allowed to 
restrain it, let it be mercilessly cut down, except, indeed, 
it be a gnarled oak, or an elm scathed by lightning, or a 
branch broken by the tempest, when it should certainly 
be allowed to remain as an indication of the strife which 
it has come through. We are not to understand from 
what has been said that there is beauty only in regular- 
ity ; whefe there is only uniformity there is no beauty. 
The eye is not offended when it sees the tree somewhat 
bent with the wind or by gravity. The gnarled oak 
looks like a man of independence and firmness, who has 
had his character formed by the resistance he has offered 
to evil. Let us preserve Wordsworth's Yew-tree where 

" Each particular trunk 's a growth 
Of intertwined fibres serpentine, 
Up coiling and inveterately convolved, 
Nor uninformed with Phantasy's looks, 
That threaten the profane." 

A different kind of beauty is secured by the clump of 
trees, where we have the trunks standing side by side, like 
the soldiers in an army, and the branches, like friends, in- 
termingling with each other, and all to furnish defense 
and shelter. 



198 ESTHETICS. 

" And ye are strong to shelter. All meek things, 
All that need home and covert, love your shade, 
Birds of shy song, and low-voiced quiet things, 
And nun-like violets by the wind betrayed." 

The wide extended f or/est has all these elements of 
beauty and it has many more ; it raises an idea of the 
exuberance of nature and of immensity. As we wander 
in it we have to find our way among difficulties, and we 
are rewarded by the graceful or grotesque forms casting 
up on the right hand and the left, and find a pleasure in 
penetrating into the gloom and losing ourselves there. 
But the interest is immeasurably increased when we fall 
in here and there with glades into which air and sunshine 
are let for our relief, and dells into which no human 
interruption can intrude, where we feel as if we heard 
the silence which is broken only by the cry of the startled 
bird and the rushing of the deer. 

Mountains. These, as we look up to them, elevate the 
mind as well as the eye. Some cannot gaze on a mount- 
ain top without an almost irrepressible ambition to 
ascend it. As we mount we are ever turning round to 
get glimpses of the scene below, and when we reach the 
summit we do not care to repress the inclination to shout. 
How interesting now to look round and behold the 
brotherhood of mountains and the multitudinous hills, 
each standing boldly in its place and eager to show its 
special shape and maintain its position ! We are awed 
as we look down the precipices, and yet we feel all the 
while how stable these rocks on which we stand are, and 
how deep their foundations. We peer into the crevices 
wondering what is concealed in them, and penetrate the 
ravines not knowing what we may meet with. We fol- 
low the windings of the valleys as they sweep down, each 
one gathering a stream to form a river. How pleasant 



BEAUTY IN NATURAL OBJECTS. 199 

to notice the plains below, and the scattered dwellings, 
evidently with living men and women within them. 
The dwellers in mountain regions have a more vivid re- 
membrance of their country than those who have been 
brought up in commonplace plains, think of it more 
frequently, and have a greater desire to return to it. 
The shepherds, such as those of ancient Judea and of 
Scotland, are often addicted to reflection. The hunters 
have a spirit of enterprise called forth by their employ- 
ments. Mountain tops are felt to. be places for adora- 
tion : God's law is fitly proclaimed there, and He comes 
down there to meet with the worshipers. 

Waterfalls. If you visit a waterfall do it leisurely 
that association of ideas may have full play. It is usu- 
ally in a broken, wild scene, and we may let our thoughts 
run wild, as a boy let loose on a holiday excursion. We 
hear the roar of the falling water : let it guide us. The 
first view of the scene gives us the idea of a mysterious 
convulsion which has taken place, we know not how or 
when, but of which we see the effects indicating vast 
power. Let us approach the cataract from below that 
it may overawe us. But in surveying it minutely let us 
go at once to where it is rushing on to its destination, 
and let us observe it taking the leap so determinedly — 
as if it must take it, as if it took it with a purpose, and 
mark that as it does so it glories in its courage and 
strength. We may then survey it from beneath. We 
see that it thrashes on the rock with a power which we 
cannot resist, and vainly try to estimate. Having per- 
formed its feat you observe how it calms itself in the pool 
it has formed, and then glides away so peacefully. You 
now look up and around. The scene is horrific, but it is 
relieved by scenes of beauty, by the spray sparkling in 
the sunshine, or gilded by the rainbow colors, and by 



200 ^ESTHETICS. 

these flowers and ferns getting nourishment in the crev- 
ices and furnishing drapery of exquisite beauty. We 
may now sit down, and we feel secure as we see the 
whole guarded by these turreted towers evidently set as 
battlements to defend it, and we allow our thoughts to 
run on, and as they do so fill the mind with ideas of 
power and feelings of wonder. 

The Ocean as seen from the shore is characterized by 
restlessness ; " it cannot rest." It is in perpetual motion, 
and casts forth as wrecks the objects that have intruded 
into its domain. As we sail upon it we are impressed 
with its immensity. At times it is the very image of rest 
and placidity. Yet we feel that it may awake at any 
time from its slumbers and raise its mountain waves to 
overwhelm, and show its yawning gulfs to swallow us. 
It has its beauties in the dark hue of its deep, and the 
cerulean of its shallow waters, in its crested foam and its 
spray. It has an infinite variety in its moods and in its 
expressions, as now it plays and smiles and laughs, and 
again is dark and sullen, angry and chafing. We are 
constrained to look upon it with a feeling of awe. The 
ideas it raises are of boundlessness and irresistible power, 
rousing the feeling of the sublime from the lowest depth 
of our nature. 

The Human Frame. The highest style of beauty is to 
be found in man and woman. A beauty may be dis- 
cerned in the forms of the human body, in its symmetry, 
its proportions, in its angles, and in its curves. There 
are tints and hues which are felt to be pleasant by the 
optic organism. But these are, after all, the lowest ele- 
ments in the beauty of the human frame. There may 
be a grace in the attitude assumed, in the walk, and in 
the manner. But the highest sesthetic power is to be 
found in the Expression. This may be seen in the mo- 



SCENERY OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 201 

tion and action, as showing activity, life, and strength. 
But it is displayed most fully in the countenance, as in- 
dicating mind or disposition, as indicating force or reso- 
lution, or refinement, or intelligence, or fire, or spirit, or 
gentleness and love. We gaze on certain countenances 
with delight, and feel as if we could gaze on them for- 
ever. The beauty appreciated will depend on the men- 
tal association of the l'ace, the country, or the individual. 
The beauty of the Negro or the Indian will not be re- 
garded so favorably by the white man. There is truth 
in the idea of Sir Charles Bell, that the typical form of a 
race is the model beauty in the estimation of that race. 
In all cases the emotion is made more intense when the 
tender passion suffuses through the whole. In many 
cases there may be no inward disposition corresponding 
to the outward signs as we have interpreted them. "Fair 
but false " has been the complaint of lovers in all ages. 
Still we cannot thereby be rid of the association even 
though we know on reflection that there is no moral 
quality ; we still look with admiring interest on that 
countenance which is so full of mirth, joyousness, quick- 
ness, love, or tenderness. 



SECTION XIII. 

SCENERY OP DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 

It may be interesting to close the general subject of 
the aesthetic emotions by showing how the beautiful, the 
picturesque, and sublime are exhibited in the well- 
known scenery of different countries. To begin with 
England. Well may she be called " Merry England." 
No country that I have seen exhibits such pictures of 
plenty and peace as she does in her wide-extended, fer- 
tile, and well-cultivated plains, her fields clothed with 



202 AESTHETICS. 

hedgerows and scattered trees, and dotted all over with 
well-fed kine, which need only to bend their necks to 
find the herbage ready to meet them, and rivers winding 
through the midst of them, and lively villages with 
village churches on either bank. She is preeminent for 
that kind of beauty produced by association, that is, by a 
prolonged train of thought and feeling raised by the 
happiness of the scene. She has also spots of great at- 
tractiveness in the creeks and bays of the sea that girds 
her, and the loveliest of lakes embosomed among the 
green hills of Cumberland and Westmoreland. But 
very much of her fair surface is blackened by the smoke 
of factories which yield so much of her wealth. Ex- 
cept in the wild rocks on the coasts of Devonshire and 
Cornwall, and in the grand mountains and rocks of Wales, 
she has little that may be called sublime. 

The Lowlands of Scotland are characterized by their 
improved agriculture, but have everywhere clear and 
sweetly-flowing streams, such as the Doon, the Ayr, and 
the Irvine, mentioned so often by Burns, and the Tweed 
and Teviot, the favorites of Scott, and their sweeps form- 
ing dells and holms of romantic beauty. Much of the 
Highlands of Scotland is simply wild ; but as you travel 
on you meet with leaping and buoyant rivers and charm- 
ing secluded lochs, or gaze on the shining faces of broad 
lakes, guarded by craggy hills and lofty mountains, apt 
to be a little too rounded at the top, but with horrid 
ravines intersecting them in Arran and in Skye. Trav- 
elers from other countries when they visit Scotland 
should choose the month from the first week in August 
to the first week in September, when the heather is in 
bloom and throws a glow of beauty over the wildness 
and the grandeur. 

Much of Ireland is bare and uninteresting, owing to 



SCENERY OP DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 203 

the extent of what was or is "bog" country ; but every- 
where you see a soft green of grass, or of leafage, which 
cheers and enlivens the soul. County Antrim, as a 
whole, is tame and bare, but then it is girdled by a coast 
marked by the picturesque and sublime ; these I reckon 
the distinguishing characteristics of Fair Head and the 
Pleskins, though when the sea is smooth and the sun- 
shine is playing on it, there is among these creeks which 
indent among the rocks a romantic loveliness to relieve 
the savage character of the horrid precipices. The vales 
farther south in Ireland, such as those of Wicklow and 
the Golden Valley, have been admired by all travelers 
of taste, because of their fine sweep and their sweetness. 
In the Western Coast there are bays in which one could 
wish to linger for days or weeks, with awful gullies pene- 
trating to great depths, and wild mountains with pictur- 
esque and imposing forms. 

Crossing the channel we find France, as a whole, rather 
flat and tame. But in all parts of it there are rivers 
rolling along magnificently with fruit trees and vine- 
yards, with smiling villages and old historic towns, on 
either bank. In the south and west it has magnificent 
bays, and in the Pyrenees mountains worthy of stand- 
ing alongside of the Alps. North Germany, for hundreds 
of miles, is one flat plain with scarcely an eminence in it ; 
and after living in it for a time I literally shouted when 
on leaving it I came in sight of the Saxon Switzerland. 
That country and the Hartz Mountains show us towering 
heights of a most singular shape, which look as if they 
were the workmanship and the abode of goblins, and the 
German students relieve the severity of their studies by 
forming companies, and taking summer excursions among 
these romantic grandeurs. Germany, too, has her grandly 
sweeping rivers, such as the Elbe, the Rhine, and the 



204 ESTHETICS. 

Danube, with lovely hills and hoary castles and terraced 
vineyards on their banks. 

For pure beauty Italy is unsurpassed, perhaps une- 
qualed. Her pure atmosphere, through which everything 
looks resplendent, her hills covered with umbrageous trees, 
her architectural cities with their magnificent churches 
and palaces, the treasures of art contained in them, and, 
above all, her sunny bays, together constitute a scene of 
loveliness from which there is nothing to detract. Lake 
Como, as it smiles in the sunshine, with its borders cov- 
ered with the richest fruit and grain and trees, and over- 
topped with snow-covered mountains, has always appeared 
to me to be the perfection of beauty. But for scenery 
which calls forth all the aesthetic feelings we must look to 
Switzerland, which attracts all people because everyone 
finds there something fitted to gratify his higher nature. 
As we travel through it we know not whether to admire 
most its valleys of softest green variegated by flowers of 
every hue, or its resplendent glaciers filling its hollows, 
or its horrid precipices from which we look down tremb- 
lingly into the yawning gulf below, or its snow-capped 
mountains mingling with the sky and reflecting the light 
of heaven. Every deep feeling is moved as we gaze on 
the huge bulk of the Jungfrau with its deep gullies, as 
we listen to the sound of the avalanche with its voice 
like thunder mingled with tinkling music, or as we sail 
on the placid bosom of Lake Lucerne, and look up with 
awe on the overhanging mountains of ice and snow. 

If we now cross the broad Atlantic we meet with 
grandeur and beauties of a new type which make us feel 
that we are in a new world, which yet we recognize as 
the same with the old. The natural scenes have there a 
vastness which they cannot have in the more confined or 
cultivated countries of Europe ; and as we float down 



SCENERY OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 205 

their mighty rivers, or wander in their interminable 
forests, or gaze on their waterfalls, or sail on their vast 
lakes, or scamper over their prairies, we have a feeling of 
extent and freedom and boundlessness which borders on 
the sublime. The eastern sea-board, as a whole, lacks 
character, though there are pleasant eminences and scat- 
tered forests and broad rivers within accessible reach of 
the great cities, ,and all along the coast there are lovely- 
bays guarded by rough and, in some spots, picturesque 
rocks, as at Newport and along the New England shores. 
When you penetrate farther in you may meet with both 
grandeurs and beauties. Many of her rivers have too 
much of the clay of the soil floating in them, but in the 
mountain countries of New England, especially in Ver- 
mont, you have as fresh and leaping streams as those of 
Scotland. The Green Mountains, the Franconian, and 
the White Mountains are equal to any mountains in 
Europe, the Alps being always excepted ; and there are 
hills and valleys half-way between mountain and dale, 
as at Lenox, alluring us not only to visit them, but to 
dwell in them, as being places where you have visible 
peace and yet variety. The extensive Alleghany range, 
stretching far south to Virginia and North Carolina, is 
made rich by its clothing of boundless green forest, and 
by the long vales running parallel to it, at a lower level, 
or running off from it, also wooded, but with cultivated 
grain and human habitations creeping up into it. 

The Hudson valley, beginning with its villas and green 
slopes, and, as you ascend, disclosing the Highlands, the 
Shawangunk mountains, and the Catskills, is, with its 
windings and recesses, as beautiful as the Rhine. Within 
an accessible distance you have the Adirondacks with its 
enjoyable wildness ; in one region bold and free mount- 
ains, and in the other pleasant lakes and streams em- 



206 AESTHETICS. 

bosomed in impenetrable forests ; and in all places bare 
and stubborn rocks facing the sky, and ready to encounter 
the storms now as they have done for unnumbered ages, 
The Falls of Niagara when first seen at a distance are 
disappointing ; they look dumpy from an excess of 
breadth when compared with their height ; but as you 
go above them, and follow the magnificent river hurry- 
ing down these rapids with such determination to its 
fall, and when you go below, and mark the irresistible 
plunge of waters and the mysterious gloom, you are 
made to feel that they have a grandeur and sublimity 
far transcending your highest expectations, and the feel- 
ing is not lessened but is enlivened when the sun shines 
out, and calls forth a beauty in the rainbow hue of the 
spray. The great lakes of America are like seas, and 
have not the sublimity of the ocean, but it is delightful 
to sail for days upon their fresh waters, and acquire 
health from their breezes. The smaller but still large 
lakes, such as the Winnipiseogee, and Champlain, and, 
above all Lake George, have, beside their broad sheets of 
water, lovely bays and delightsome wooded islands in 
which one would wish to dwell all the sunshine summer; 
and they lie among lofty mountains adorned with the 
richest leafage. 

The region beyond the Alleghany range for hundreds 
of miles is flat, and its rivers are sluggish, but then it is 
rich and pleasantly wooded, and its streams have often 
cut out picturesque banks. It is a most delightful feel- 
ing which one experiences in floating for days on the 
Upper Mississippi, round lovely wooded islands, or bold 
promontories which look at first as if they would bar all 
progress, and showing openings only as we put trust in 
them and advance, and all along between lofty and in 
many places precipitous banks hundreds of feet in height, 



. THE FINE ARTS. 207 

with jagged ledge covered with fresh green grass, or 
more frequently by dense forest, at times coming down 
to the river's edge, and at times receding miles away, 
opening glens of singular beauty, or letting in the dark 
waters of rivers famed in Indian story. The prairies 
with their ocean of green verdure in May enlivened by 
wild flowers are exquisitely lovely, and I enjoyed them 
excessively in a visit to Iowa ; but I confess I should not 
like to live all my days in the finest of them, which 
would come to be monotonous with nothing but the 
green level below and the blue concave above. 



SECTION XIV. 

THE FINE ARTS. 

Music. I have asserted that the aesthetic feeling often 
begins with a pleasant sensation, which by its regularity 
sets the mind working, and raises a train of thought, 
particularly of harmony, and this conducts to ideas of 
activity, life, and soul, gendering the sentiment. Music 
furnishes a good example. It is felt first as an elysian 
sensation, but is appreciated mainly because of the series 
of ideas which it excites. The words are, or ought to be, 
the expression of the ideas which the music would natu- 
rally excite, and when there are no words audible our 
musicians can interpret the sounds in their own way. 

Architecture. I am inclined to think that there may 
be some mathematical law of the vibrations producing an 
organic impression which rouses the intellect to notice in 
a vague way, in the first instance, and afterwards in a 
more precise way, the proportions of the building which 
are seen to indicate skill, design, purpose. The atten- 
tion being called and intelligence awakened, a series and 
succession of proportions and adaptations and uses are 



208 AESTHETICS. 

discovered, calling forth appropriate feelings, and it may 
be accompanying associations, carried on as long as the 
building is under the view. As a negative condition it 
is necessary that there should not be presented in any 
part uselessness, which is folly, disproportion, unsym- 
metrical sides, unbalanced appendages, heavy parts un- 
sustained, bulky columns which support nothing, weak 
foundations, overwhelming crushing roofs; for these 
would disturb the proper flow of the ideas and feelings. 
But then it is necessary that there should be positive ex- 
cellences in skillful arrangements, and in ideas expressed 
in stone, elevating the mind to high contemplation. 
The elements of strength, massiveness, resistance, endur- 
ance, stability, may all have their place fittingly in archi- 
tecture, by raising deep ideas, as -may also shade and re- 
treat and protection. But in other buildings we are 
more pleased to see lightness, airiness, pointedness, heav- 
enwardness. Of a still higher order are those buildings 
which show us curves of great sweep, and go out as it 
were into infinity. In Grecian architecture the idea is 
solidity, shelter, covering, cool shade, with elegant pro- 
portions on which we fondly gaze. In the Gothic cathe- 
dral it is sweep, avenues, like those of trees, towering 
sky-ward and with heavenly tendency. In the old 
English architecture it is home, peace, comfort, with life 
and variety and affection. 

Sculpture. The essential idea is form and expression, 
of the man or woman if it be a copy, or of the thoughts 
and feelings of the personage represented if the figure 
be ideal, whether of contentment, placidity, curiosity, 
anxiety, of hope, joy, or love, or may be determination, 
eagerness, courage, ambition, jealousy, hatred, and re- 
venge. These must be marked by the posture of the 
body, or they must beam or flash or scowl from the ex- 



THE FINE ARTS 209 

pression of the countenance. When there is a group, 
there must be a unity in the variety, a central form to 
which all eyes turn with approbation or disapprobation, 
with a common sentiment, but with diversities of char- 
acter and aims. 

Landscape Gardening. We now hate to see trees 
clipped into the forms of beasts or birds or any other 
artificial shape ; we shrink from rectilinear Dutch walks 
hemmed in by hedges, we doubt even of Italian statues 
of mythological persons, as somehow not in their proper 
place (at least when winter comes they should be shel- 
tered in a building) ; and we love to have curves and 
sweeps, and paths that may ever lead into something 
new, and glimpses of distant objects, and vistas that 
seem to have no end. There should be trees of various 
kinds and shapes, planted at a respectful distance from 
each other, and each showing its separate form and char- 
acter. There should also be clumps of trees for shelter, 
and to show their leafage. In flower gardening we strive 
to have beds of varied forms, suggestive of fertility and 
invention, and flowers of harmonious colors growing 
alongside of each, to quicken our sensitive power. But 
care must be taken in imitating the variety of nature to 
conceal the imitation ; here as in poetry, artis est celara 
artem. In many modern gardens there are so many arti- 
fices in ingenious cut beds, and meaningless dells, that we 
turn away from the pretty conceits with a feeling of irre- 
pressible contempt. 

Landscape Painting. Here, the first thing is to have 
a verisimilitude of the actual or possible scene. We are 
offended when called to look on a sky which, though 
beautiful in itself, is unlike anything we have seen in 
nature. But the painting will not fulfill the highest ends 
unless it goes farther than mere imitation, and raises 

14 



210 AESTHETICS. 

within ns the same feelings as the landscape itself would 
do, whether of peace or power or grandeur, whether it 
be of plain or valley or river or ocean, of hopeful spring, 
of rich summer, of plenteous autumn, or stern winter. 
The grand aim of the artist should be, not so much to 
make a-n exact picture as to raise the very sentiments we 
should experience, were we in the very heart of the scene, 
say a desert in Arabia or Sahara, or a gorge in the Sierra 
Nevadas or Himalayas. 

Historical Painting. Here, faithfulness to time, place, 
and person is essential to gain our confidence; and the 
absence of it causes distrust and makes our nature rebel. 
We cannot, and should not, tolerate a modern lady, or a 
Scotch or Swiss girl, made to appear in an ancient or 
cartoon scene, say in a Bible painting. There is always 
a special zest when the artist is in thorough sympathy 
with those whom he places before us, as we feel when 
gazing on the homely Scottish scenes of Sir David Wilkie, 
and which we do not feel when he sought to give us 
grander scenes, as Knox preaching before the Lords of 
the Congregation. But the grand aim of the painter of 
character should be to give us expression, true to nature 
in the first instance, but also portraying the thoughts, 
impulses, and passions of men and women. He should 
carry those who view the painting into the very heart 
of the scenes he represents, and make them experience 
something of the feelings which should have passed 
through their breasts had they mingled in the scenes, — 
they all the while knowing that this is a representation, 
for it is only when they do so that the sentiment of admi- 
ration, and other aesthetic feelings, are called forth. The 
painter may have a nobler aspiration ; he may aim at 
elevating our sentiments by the exhibition of great and 
noble character and deeds, and in doing so show himself 



THE FINE ARTS. 211 

the higher artist. There is a genuine portrayal of 
human nature in the paintings of low life, of drinking 
and sensuality and vulgar humor, by the Dutch painters ; 
but surely there is something vastly higher shown in the 
pure virgin, the noble apostles, and the holy angels of 
Raphael and the great Italian painters. Each class of 
paintings raises a genuine aesthetic feeling ; but surely 
there is something immeasurably higher in the latter 
than in the former. 1 

1 I acknowledge that the above discussion of the Fine Arts is very 
meagre. Though I am fond of gazing on paintings, and have looked on 
vast numbers, I am not competent to describe them as a connoisseur. 
What is given is sufficient for my purpose. 



BOOK THIRD. 
CONTINUOUS AND COMPLEX EMOTIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS. 
SECTION I. 

AFFECTIONS AND PASSIONS. 

Down to this point we have been looking at single 
emotions. But we cannot comprehend our nature till we 
view the feelings operating continuously, or in combina- 
tion. This will be felt by many as a more interesting 
study, for it brings us into actual contact with human 
life, — into the society of men and women, where the 
motives are always mixed, often very complex. Shake- 
speare is true to human nature when he brings apparently 
incongruous moods and passions, say gravity and levity, 
so close together. Scott is drawing from life when he 
places on the same person, and at the same time, the 
smile on the lips and the tear in the eye. The continued 
emotions are commonly called Affections and Passions. 

These phrases are used somewhat vaguely. Affection 
is the word used when we speak of a disposition benig- 
nant and commendable, and going forth towards living 
beings. It often signifies the same as love ; thus we 
speak of the affection of a mother for her son. Passion 
is the word used when the disposition is more doubtful in 
its natui'e, and may be towards unconscious objects. We 
talk of people being in a passion when they are angry, 
and having a passion for gambling or for hunting. Both 
embrace more than a single emotion, or even than a repe- 



216 CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS. 

tition of the emotion. They imply an abiding princi- 
ple, that is, a deeply seated appetence, which ever tends 
to act. They are of the nature of a river with many 
streams flowing into it. How many brooks join in the 
affection of a mother for her child, or the passion of a 
gambler for play. 

In the combination implied in affection and passion, 
association of ideas prompted by the abiding appetence 
always plays an important part, and collects a host of 
concomitants and consequences. When a man is in a 
passion, what a flight of thoughts, like that of wild beasts 
pursuing their prey, of the indignity that has been 
heaped upon him, of the loss he has sustained, of the in- 
justice or meanness of the one who has perpetrated all 
this, and the necessity of resisting or resenting, or of pun- 
ishing the offender. When a mother hears of the death 
of her son, what a concourse of gloomy images, like that 
of birds gathering to the carcass. When we learn of a 
favorite project of ours being successful, what a fluttering 
like that of doves to their windows. What a quiver, full 
of keen instruments, of the greed of gain, of the deter- 
mination not to be beaten, the craving for excitement 
to drown reflection, in the power that is driving on the 
man, who is all the while conscious that he is doing 
wrong, to the gambling table with the hoards of money 
spread out upon it, and his competitors ready for the con- 
test. 

SECTION II. 

LOVE. 

I have not placed love among the simple emotions. In 
a loose sense it may take in all the emotions. We may 
be said in a general way to love, that is, we have an at- 
tachment to all the persons and objects towards which 



LOVE. 217 

we have an appetence. The miser loves his wealth, and 
the tyrant his power, and the vain man the applause that 
is offered him. Taken in this sense love is not a sepa- 
rate appetence, but a term designating a characteristic 
of all the grateful appetences of our nature. But we 
denote something much more peculiar when we speak of 
that love that is a virtue, or rather a grace, and this the 
very highest grace. 

In this love, love to living beings, to God or to man, 
there is always more than mere emotion, there is an act 
of the will. And here it is of importance to distinguish 
between emotion and will. In the former there is, we 
have seen, excitement, with attachment or repugnance. 
But in will there is choice, or the opposite of choice, re- 
jection. Two objects are before us, and we choose the 
one and reject the other. Or there may be will where 
there is only one object before us ; we may, as it were, 
adopt it at once. The will may assume lower or higher 
forms. It may exist in the simple form of wish; we wish 
to attain this pleasure, or this honor, which may or may 
not be attainable. Or we may form a determination to 
attain it ; this is volition, the consummating exercise of 
the will. 

Now in all love considered as a virtue or grace there 
is will. There will, it is true, be an appetence or emo- 
tion commonly, or always. But affection does not de- 
serve the name of love which mounts no higher than 
mere feeling. In all genuine love there is well-wishing, 
there is benevolence. We wish well, what we believe to 
be good, towards the person beloved. In love, we would 
do good to our neighbor, we would promote the glory of 
God. To bring out this, we may distinguish between 
love considered as mere attachment, which we may call 
the love of complacency, and love considered as well wish- 



218 CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS. 

ing, that is benevolence. The former is a mere emotion, 
which may or may not be virtuous. The latter is an act 
of our voluntary nature, and is a virtue, is the very high- 
est virtue, "the greatest of these is charity." But the 
full discussion of this subject should fall under the sub- 
ject of Will, and not of Emotion. 



SECTION III. 

LOVE OF THE SEXES. 

Here there is emotion, or rather affection, with its 
various elements. There is always an excitement with 
an attachment. Here, there may also be wish or will — 
we should wish all that is good to the person beloved. 
But this is not the speciality of the affection which we 
are now contemplating. We may have all this towards 
a sister. In the affection of those whom we describe as 
lovers there is always a sexual appetence working to a 
greater or less extent, consciously or unconsciously, al- 
lowed or restrained. In a well regulated mind the bodily 
appetite should always be subordinated to the mental 
emotion and to the well wishing. When it is so it may 
become an element in a very exalted affection. It ap- 
pears earlier, but comes forth fully at puberty, when it 
helps to give full form to the body, and to call forth 
many affections, to impart new motives, and to evoke 
varied energies. All along it leads us to delight in the 
presence and cherish the image of the loved one, and 
to devise and engage in many efforts to please and to 
gratify. As fusing body and mind it may become one 
of the strongest, deepest, and most influential of the pas- 
sions of our nature. The continuance of the bodily incli- 
nation helps to give a permanence to the affection which 
prompts to activity to secure affection in return ; or when 



LOVE OF THE SEXES. 219 

this is not to be had, ending in wasting of body, in dis- 
appointment and irritation of soul, and, at times, in death 
or even in self-destruction, — in such cases love travels 
like the simoom, heated, colored, and destructive. 

Neither psychologists nor physiologists have been able 
to tell us what it is precisely which leads a man and 
woman to cherish a spe'cial love for one another. They 
have left this very much to novelists, to whom it has 
furnished their richest stock in trade, but who are not 
competent to analyze for us the varied and subtle ele- 
ments at work. It may be allowed to physiologists that 
there is a bodily appetence underneath, calling forth and 
working with specially mental powers. But in all that 
deserves the hallowed name of love, there are far nobler 
appetences than those sensual and selfish ones, which 
attract a man to a paramour or to a harlot. What are 
these ? 

This a difficult question to answer. We may, how- 
ever, safely answer that the perception of beauty in man 
or woman on the part of the opposite sex is undoubtedly 
one of the most potent prompters of love. There is a 
beauty of person, expression, and manner, which is apt 
to impress all, and the possessor of it draws the eyes and 
the admiration of all of the opposite sex. These, when 
of the male sex, are apt to become vain, and when of the 
female sex to become coquettes, loving to gain hearts 
only to crush them. Then there are men and women 
who have an attraction only to certain persons, and, it 
may be, to no others ; these, if they fall in with those 
whom they can love in return, and respect, may be more 
fortunate than those who are universal favorites, and are 
distracted by the attention paid them. There are some 
who never could love any but one person, who happily 
may, or unfortunately may not, love them in return. 



220 CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS. 

Love is often kindled by love ; we are apt to love those 
who first love us. This can easily be explained. The 
idea of a person cherishing an affection for us makes us 
feel the person attractive. It has to be added that when 
this love is shown on the part of those whom we cannot 
love, it is apt to produce aversion, as we are afraid of 
being troubled with them. In all cases love is increased 
when it is reciprocated ; the person loved has now a 
farther attraction, and the mutual affection may bind the 
parties by links that cannot be broken, may bind husband 
and wife in a union which death only can dissolve, nay, 
which even death cannot dissolve. There are instances 
of the love continuing and increasing even when it has 
met with no response, leading to sorrow which refuses to 
be comforted, and to pining and wasting of body. These 
affections, while they furnish some of the very highest 
enjoyments of life, may be the means of inflicting the 
direst disappointment, when the persons do not fall in 
with those whom they could love and who would love 
them in return, when they cannot love those who love 
them, or be loved of those whom they love. 

Our question is not yet answered, What draws lovers 
together ? There is often a likeness between the parties. 
But quite as frequently there is a marked difference. The 
tall man chooses the little woman, or the short woman 
falls in love with the tall man. The restless man selects- 
a quiet partner, and the timid woman puts herself under 
a bold protector. Yet it would be an error on the oppo- 
site side to say that love, like polar force, attracts the 
unlike. There must be something in the parties that 
draws them towards each other. There are tastes and 
predilections natural, often hereditary, which find their 
correlates, and a gratified satisfaction in persons of the 
opposite sex. It may not be a similarity, or a dissimi- 



LOVE OF THE SEXES. 221 

larity, but it is, as it is commonly called, an affinity of 
some kind. This may often be like the correspondence 
of tallies, by which they fit into each other. The protu- 
berance fills the cavity, the hook goes into the eye ; the 
passivity is roused by the activity, which again finds re- 
pose in the passivity, and the forward impulse is met by 
the receptivity. The dull man often likes to have a 
lively wife, who has music, or amusements, or a cheerful 
remark to entertain, him when he comes home from his 
toils ; and a woman of a calm or sluggish temperament 
is pleased to be roused by a playful husband, who brings 
home to her the incidents of the day, the news, or the 
scandal. But there are limits to this fitness of opposites 
to blend with each other. The woman's liveliness, while 
at proper seasons it relieves the husband, must not be 
so constant as to disturb his habitual soberness ; and the 
man's bantering must not be made, like a perpetual firing 
of rockets, to disturb the woman's complacency, or the 
wit to oppress her with a sense of her inferiority. I have 
noticed that affection is apt to be kindled, and is always 
strengthened, when the train of ideas in the two minds 
are consonant, — this makes the strings to harmonize; 
and on the other hand, disturbance is apt to be produced 
when the association of ideas in the one jars upon that 
of the other. In all cases the love is apt to be more 
permanent when the tastes of the persons, when the 
courses they pursue, and the ends they keep in view are 
alike, or, rather, when they correspond and cooperate, as 
one workman does with another in a factory. 

It is scarcely necessary to remark that the tendency 
of mutual love, in all cases, is to draw the persons to- 
gether in mind and in body ; in conversation and in em- 
brace when they are together, and in correspondence 
when they are separated ; in communion of thought and 



222 CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS. 

in tokens and expressions of affection, till they become, 
as it were, merged in one another, and almost feel as if 
they were one. 

SECTION IV. 

EMOTIONS COMING UP IN GROUPS. 

I have already noticed the fact that ideas become as- 
sociated in clusters (p. 65). An idea may have become 
the attracting centre of a whole body of others, each of 
which is emotional. When that idea starts up the whole 
train comes with it. We often wonder" to find some one 
breaking out into a burst of passion without any cause or 
occasion known to us. But if we were acquainted with 
the history of the man we could account for the whole ; 
the idea has gathered round it a whole body of feelings 
which come M with it, and it is thus ready as a spark to 
kindle a conflagration. There are emotional ideas which 
raise excitemerit as readily as substances covered with 
pitch take fire. We have had an unfortunate collision 
with a man, and when he suddenly comes in contact 
with us the pent-up feeling bursts out, as liquor does 
from a vessel when it is tapped. Or, he has offended us 
in one of our ruling passions, and henceforth when we 
think of him we have the memory of his acts of sup- 
posed ill-usage, and of our mortifications and disappoint- 
ments. A disappointment or a triumph, a loss or a gain, 
a reproach, a compliment, a success, or a humiliation 
may thus have become glued to a place, or an event, 
which will introduce its concomitant, it may be inoppor- 
tunely, and in spite of our efforts to prevent it. Some 
have anniversaries of fortunes or misfortunes, of mar- 
riages or of deaths, which bring with them crowded feel- 
ings sweet as clusters of grapes, or agitated as waves 
struggling in a creek. 



EMOTIONS COMING UP IN GROUPS. 223 

We are all liable to bursts of feeling, such as that 
which moves the breast of the mother as she comes upon 
a memorial of her departed son, say the prize won by 
him in his opening youth ere he was taken from her, or 
the sword which he wielded so bravely in the battle in 
which he was slain. Such are the thoughts, mirthful 
and melancholy, which rise up and chase each other like 
a flock of birds, as the engrossed man visits the scenes of 
childhood, from which he has been so long separated. 
Such is the mountain torrent which bursts out when the 
sailor's wife is told that she is a widow. There is the 
cataract, when a prize of honor, or power, or wealth, 
long looked for, goes to a rival ; or when the merchant 
has suffered a loss which he knows must make him bank- 
rupt. Thus are we liable not only to moments of feel- 
ing, but to moods, continuing for longer or shorter time, 
of hope or of fear, of joy or of sorrow. 

Every one must have noticed persons who have been 
for hours in a state of cheerfulness or even hilarity, dis- 
posed to be pleased with everything, suddenly becom- 
ing silent or morose, or cross-tempered, or contradictory, 
without a cause being discovered by a neighbor, or by 
the man himself. People say it is a change of temper, 
and so it is ; but we must look deeper. It may so far 
proceed from a stomachic or some other organic derange- 
ment, but there is a deeper element. It proceeds from 
the intrusion of an idea with a gangrene of feelings, and 
this has given a new turn to the flow of thought which 
generates a mood which may continue for hours. 



224 CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS. 

SECTION V. 

TEMPERAMENT. 

This is to a large extent organic, and implies nervous 
action. But mental action mingles. Many great men 
have been liable to fits of despondency, to moods of 
melancholy. Such men have commonly had some high 
or deep aim. This may be theoretical or it may be 
practical ; it may be benevolent or it may be selfish ; it 
may contemplate a present or remote good. One man 
would build up a large fortune, another a lasting reputa- 
tion, another would climb a height of ambition. One 
has his mind filled with what is to live forever, another 
expects to make a great scientific discovery, a third is 
rearing a new system of philosophy. This one is to be a 
merchant who will trade with all quarters of the globe, 
this other is to be a great lawyer and sit on the bench of 
the supreme court, a third is to be a great statesman and 
determine the destinies of a country, that fourth is to be 
a brilliant orator to sway masses of men, and the fifth a 
gallant soldier and a mighty conqueror. But then things 
in this world do not always fall out according to the 
wishes and expectations even of the most far-sighted. 
Accidents will occur to stop them, and opposition will 
come from quarters from which aid was expected. Under 
such circumstances weak minds will be apt to give up 
the effort. Stronger spirits will persevere. But as they 
do so they may have their prostrations, occasional or 
periodical. Mohammed will have his fits and retire into 
a cave, not to abandon the project but to brood over it. 
In such a position the eager man feels like the eagle in 
its cage ; like the prisoner in the dungeon beating \ipon 
the walls that restrain him, and anxious to break them. 
Aristotle has remarked that men of genius are often of 



TEMPEKAMENT. 225 

a melancholy temperament. We can understand this. 
They do not find their high ideal realized in the world, 
and they retire within themselves, or retreat to some 
shade 

" Whose melancholy gloom accords with their soul's sadness." 

In some cases of this description the cloud comes down 
lower and lower upon the mountain, and at last wraps 
the whole soul in thickest mist or dismal gloom. But 
when there is buoyancy, the man comes forth from his 
retreat to some great work, as David did from the cave 
of Adullam, as Luther did after his depression the night 
before he had to face the great emperor and the Diet of 
Worms. As one of the incongruities, but not contradic- 
tions, of human character, it often happens that the man 
under gloom is liable in the reaction to fits of merriment, 
which come out from him like electric sparks, to give a 
grim light in the darkness. It was thus that John Knox, 
that Oliver Cromwell, that Abraham Lincoln had their 
outbursts of levity in the midst of their habitual serious- 
ness. 

From much the same causes we find at times our de- 
pressed and melancholy men to be very kind, sympa- 
thetic, and benevolent. They may wear a downcast 
look, they may dwell in a gloomy atmosphere, they may 
rather repel the young and frighten the frivolous, but 
underneath the encrusting ice is a flowing stream which 
cannot be frozen. Their benevolence has so often been 
received with ingratitude, their attempts to do good have 
so often failed, that their look has become somewhat for- 
bidding, but beyond and within there is a loving and 
generous heart. 

15 



226 CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS- 

SECTION VI. 

TEMPER. 

Our key opens other secrets of character. We can ex- 
plain what is meant by temper. This may arise in part 
from bodily irritation, from a disordered alimentary canal 
or stomach. A diseased organism is sure to have seeds 
in it which breed, ephemera. The attacks may individ- 
ually be exceedingly small, but, like those of the gnat, 
may be exceedingly uncomfortable. The person may be 
under its influence without knowing it. Incipient dis- 
ease in children is often detected by a restlessness of tem- 
per. The mother knows that her boy needs the visit of 
a doctor when he is fretful, and relief comes, and the 
spirit rises, when the irritating cause is removed. It is 
the same all our lives. The dyspeptic feels depressed 
and easily disturbed ; the woman of bilious temperament 
and liable to nervous headaches is restless, and yet indis- 
posed to action, and is apt to get angry when compelled 
to make exertion. Much of commonplace human happi- 
ness springs from the vital organs acting healthily, and 
encouraging a pleasant flow of spirits ; and much of our 
wretchedness from the same organs, interrupted in their 
natural action. The uneasiness is partly pathological, 
but is greatly intensified by the interference with the 
pleasant flow of association. Your disagreeable, unpopu- 
lar people are often those who have annoyances in their 
own frame, which make them as disagreeable to them- 
selves as they are to others. 

Temper springs fundamentally from disappointed ap- 
petences. It is most apt to be displayed by those who 
have come under the sway of a great many small attach- 
ments, ever liable to be ruffled ; especially when they 
cling round near objects, round their children, or personal 



PREPOSSESSIONS. 227 

ease, or aggrandizement, or social rank and status, or 
dress, or furniture, or equipage, all liable to be disturbed 
from day to day, or from hour to hour. The person is 
prepared to sit down to a pleasant meal, or enjoy a quiet 
hour with his family, or commit himself to rest at night, 
when an unexpected event breaks in upon him, like a 
burglar, to make him flee or fight. Or he has a favorite 
opinion, and some one contradicts him ; or he meets with 
opposition where he expected assistance ; or the exertions 
he makes and the favors he bestows are received with 
ingratitude, and the man is put into a state of irritation 
which makes him disagreeable to himself and all who 
come in contact with him. The temper once kindled will 
be apt to throw out sparks towards all who are near, to- 
wards children and servants and neighbors, towards all 
who come across the man, though they may have had no 
connection with the original disturbance. 

"But ever after the small violence done 
Rankled in him, and ruffled all his heart 
As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long 
A little bitter pool about a stone 
On the bare coast." l 

Such is the experience when the appetences are nu- 
merous and small. The character is weak and may be- 
come contemptible. The energy is wasted in the heat 
of small molecular motion, or expresses itself in spitting 
sparks. 

SECTION VII. 

PREPOSSESSIONS. 

A strong affection creates a prepossession in favor of 
whatever promotes it. We have had pleasure in the 
presence of certain objects, they have gratified our tastes 

1 Tennyson's Idylls of the King. 



228 CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS. 

and fallen in with our predilections, and associations 
gather around them ; and when they come before us we 
are prepared to welcome them, and at all times we think 
and expect favorably of them. We have a warm heart 
towards our birthplace, towards the scenes in which we 
have passed our younger years, and towards our home. 
The affectionate husband and wife will delight to visit 
the spot in which they spent their honeymoon. We are 
apt to delight in those who have a pleasant countenance, 
a genial temper, or a lively, a deferential, or a flattering 
manner. Some have a preference for those who have a 
frank or brusque address, or who are candid in their 
opinions, or have an honest way of expressing themselves. 
Others are rather drawn to those who are affectionate 
and tender in their feelings. All delight in the society 
of those for whom they have such predilections, do not 
willingly believe evil of them, and are inclined to copy 
them. 

The father and mother are disposed to think favorably 
of the character of their sons and daughters, do not 
readily listen to an evil report of them, and will believe 
what they say when they would not credit the same 
tale told by a stranger. It is proverbial that love has 
a blinding influence, and the woman under its power 
trusts the vows of her lover who may thereby become 
her seducer. We willingly attend to the arguments 
urged in behalf of causes which seem to promote our 
pleasures or flatter our self-esteem. He is likely to be 
a favorite in private and in public, to be in fact the pop- 
ular man (more so than a great and good man, who may 
rather excite envy, as interfering with our inordinate 
self-esteem), whose manner and style of address are such 
that those whom he meets go away better pleased with 
themselves. It is said that those who got a refusal from 



PREJUDICE. 229 

Charles II. of England went away better pleased than 
were those who had their requests granted by his father, 
and no doubt this helped to make the one die in pros- 
perity while the other perished on a scaffold. The flat- 
terer gains his end by speaking to us of our real or im- 
agined good qualities ; but it may happen unfortunately, 
or rather I should say fortunately, that we come to dis- 
cover that he pays the like compliments to others, and 
we turn away with disgust as from one who has been 
trying to deceive us. The courtier studies the weak- 
nesses of those whose favor he would gain, and addresses 
himself to them, but may find that the caprices of the 
pampered man of power become in the end intolerable. 
That man is not likely to be a successful agent in a good 
cause who sends away those whom he would gain in a 
humbled and repining humor. The ardent man stimu- 
lates others because he imparts to them some of the mag- 
netic power which is in himself. There is sure to be a 
terrible disappointment, and perhaps even a disposition 
towards revenge and retaliation, when those whom our 
imaginations have clothed with such excellent qualities, 
or whom we supposed to be our friends, are seen to be 
unworthy, or have turned out to be foes. 

SECTION VIII. 

PREJUDICE. 

It presupposes certain tendencies, convictions, affec- 
tions, or purposes which have been thwarted, and then 
all that is associated with the disappointments raises 
malign feelings which often lead to unjustifiable conduct. 
There are scenes at which we have suffered a humilia- 
tion, or experienced a sorrow, and we ever afterwards 
avoid them. Or there are people who have knowingly 



230 CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS. 

or unknowingly, justly or unjustly, offended us ; who 
have made us see their superiority and our inferiority ; 
who have lowered us in our own estimation ; who have 
wounded us in a tender part ; who have crossed our favor- 
ite ends; who have injured or maligned us ; or beat us in 
the rivalries of trade, or the competitions social or liter- 
ary of life ; and henceforth we look askance upon them, 
are apt to feel uncomfortable in their presence, and to 
imagine them to be actuated by ugly motives towards 
us. This feeling is especially apt to rise in the breasts 
of those who have injured any one in his good name or 
estate ; they fear that he may take revenge and do them 
mischief. In these ways prejudice is excited against not 
only individuals, but classes, against trades, professions, 
grades of society, — the rich fearing the poor, and the 
poor envying the rich, — against political parties, relig- 
ious sects, against races white or colored, against states 
and nations — " the Jews had no dealings with the Sa- 
maritans." 

This prejudice, wrong in itself, is sure to lead to evil 
conduct. These antipathies are one of the 'principal 
sources of quarrels, feuds, and wars ; men clothe their 
enemies with evil qualities, as Nero clothed the early 
Christians with the skins of wild beasts, or covered them 
with pitch, and then destroyed them- We see the feeling 
working in more common cases. We do not listen pa- 
tiently to the arguments urged by those who, for any 
cause, say by their misconduct or our misapprehension 
of it, have given us offense. We become predisposed 
against causes which have injured our prospects. The 
publican is not likely to feel an interest in the cause of 
temperance, nor the protectionist in free trade, nor the 
licentious man in the correction of vice, nor the infidel in 
the defenses of religion, nor the calumniator in the re- 



FICKLENESS OF FEELING. 231 

cital of the excellent deeds of one whom be has reviled. 
Herod readily granted the request of the damsel who 
danced before him, and her mother prompted her to ask 
the head of John the Baptist, who had audaciously de- 
clared that "it is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's 
wife." The perverse boy comes to detest the faithful 
teacher who has admonished him so often. Politicians 
are apt to speak against the party which hinders them in 
their schemes of patriotic or personal aggrandizement. 
Or, what is to be explained on much the same principles, 
they turn with a strong revulsion against the party 
which they have long favored, but which, as they think, 
has overlooked them, or kept them down, or ill-used 
them. We can thus explain the mistaken zeal, often the 
antipathies, of the convert or pervert. We have here 
the key to open the secrets of some of the contradictions, 
so called, of human nature, in persons bitterly reviling 
and persecuting the causes which at one time they clam- 
orously supported. We have a still more lamentable 
issue, when the man comes to quarrel with his own con- 
science, and learns to hate the duty which it would lead 
him to do, but which he refuses to do. Not willing to 
listen to the reprover he would hasten to tear out his 
tongue that it may no longer rebuke him. 



SECTION IX. 

FICKLENESS OF FEELING. 

Every one must have come in contact with people who 
have feelings of a certain kind strong and lively, but 
who soon lose them and become apathetic, or fall under 
emotions of a different, perhaps of an opposite kind. To- 
day they seem to be full of affection for us, and load us 
with expressions of regard ; to-morrow they are turned 



232 CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS. 

away from us, and meet us with opposition or enmity, 
and are perhaps lavishing their friendship on others, for 
whom they had no regard before. There are people of 
whom this chameleon liability to change of affection is 
characteristic. They will be found to be persons with 
no very decided or deep motive principle, and whose 
emotions are very much determined by outward circum- 
stances. Commonly, they are swayed by a number of 
not very strong appetences, taking the direction which 
external events working on an irrepressible nervous tem- 
perament give them. At this present time they are 
deeply interested in some person or end, great or small; 
but the seed is sown in stony places, and, having no depth 
of earth, it speedily withers away. New circumstances 
appear, unexpected difficulties spring up, as they prose- 
cute the cause ; or the person beloved gives offense, and 
the interest is ready to collect round some other objects. 
Such people appear very inconsistent, and so they are, 
and they do not gain our permanent confidence ; but they 
are, after all, acting consistently with their character, 
which goes by impulses and jerks, and not by steady 
principle. 



SECTION X. 

RULING PASSIONS. 

The young are apt to live under the influence of a con- 
siderable number of lighter impulses, moving the spirit 
as the ocean is rippled into wavelets by zephyrs. Now it 
is affection to father, mother, sister, brother, companion ; 
now it is some sense of duty ; now it is a desire to win 
esteem and to dazzle ; now it is a sheer love of activity 
and excitement, as in play, in leaping, and dancing. As 
they advance in years they become soberer, partly from 



EULING PASSIONS. 233 

the less lively flow of the animal spirits, but mainly from 
the streams being collected into a few formed and settled 
channels. The fountains and streamlets that originally 
start and feed our streams are beyond calculation in 
number, but as they flow they meet, and unite in great 
rivers. So the numberless impulses of youth settle into 
a few habitual modes of action. In middle age, the 
earning of one's bread, the cares of a household, the 
business of life, the common services and civilities due to 
neighbors and friends demand and engross the greater 
portion of the motive energy. In declining life, the 
grave man and woman commonly centre their regards 
on a few ends which they pursue, having seen the vanity 
of many of those which captivated them in their younger 
years — though some of those which they cling to may 
turn out to be as unsatisfactory as those which they have 
abandoned. 

Youth might be painted as with the question ever in 
their mouths, " Who will show us any good ? " and you 
see them running to every spot where others are collected, 
and gathering round every fire of crackling wood that is 
kindled. But there are many exceptions to this general 
account. There are boys and girls who have sobriety in 
their character and manner from the beginning, either 
because they are governed by some serious principle or 
principles, or because they have no very strong passions. 
They are your boys with aged faces, which recommend 
them to grave seniors but keep them from being popular 
with their coevals, who prefer the lively, the gay, and 
the roystering. In like manner there are old men and 
women who retain their interest in occupations which 
enable them to retain their youthful character, and bring 
them into sympathy with children. 

There are cases in which one passion is strong, or a 



234 CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS. 

few passions are strong, in themselves or relatively to 
others, and they claim and gain a governing potency, 
and reign without a rival, or with a rival which they 
keep down. It is the devotion of a boy to his play; or 
of a girl to her father — it may be in poverty, or in 
wretched health ; or of a mother to her son — it may be 
helplessly invalid, or deformed ; or of the merchant to 
his business, or of a farmer to his land, or of a physician 
to his profession, or of a scientist to his researches, or of 
a philosopher to his speculations, or of the painter, sculpt- 
or, or architect to his art, or of the patriot to his country, 
or of the politician to his party, or of the successful sol- 
dier to military aggrandizement, or of the ecclesiastic to 
his church, or of the Christian to the glory of God. The 
passion, as a centre, aggregates a crowd of associations, 
and it moves on like a marshaled host, with the com- 
bined strength of the whole, bearing down the obstacles 
which oppose. Those thus impelled are often distin- 
guished by their energy — for good or for evil, according 
to the nature of the affection. Among them are to be 
found your strong lovers and your good haters. They 
often accomplish ends, in heaping up wealth, in doing 
brilliant feats, in making scientific discoveries, which 
could not have been effected by men of equal intellectual 
ability, but without the concentrated energy. They 
strike out a path for themselves ; like Lochinvar, they 
swim the river " where ford there is none." The man 
with one clear line before him has much the same ad- 
vantages as a railway carriage has over one on a common 
road, and he moves along with the determination of a 
steam train on the rails set for it. Sometimes the ruling 
power imparts a sublimity to things that are not grand 
in themselves ; thus the love of the mother, as she forgets 
her personal safety in defending her children, makes the 



RULING PASSIONS. 235 

weak woman strong aud heroic. In other cases, the 
strong ambition being attached to weak capacities makes 
the person ridiculous, as the ambition of Charles XII. of 
Sweden did. But when there is any corresponding intel- 
lectual power strong characters are produced, such as 
those of Alexander, Julius Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon, 
or belonging to a different order, Paul, or Knox, or Mil- 
ton, or among females, as Semiramis, Cleopatra, Queen 
Elizabeth, and Catherine of Russia. These affections, 
like the great rivers of the world, the Nile, the Ganges, 
the Mississippi, the Amazon, drain vast regions and draw 
their waters into one great stream, which moves along 
with irresistible power. 

This ruling passion may become terrible in its power ; 
carrying all before it like a swollen river with torturing 
eddies, sucking all things as into a whirlpool, or devour- 
ing all around like the conflagration of a city. Hidden 
it may be from the eye, but when an object strikes it or a 
spark is applied to it, it bursts forth into an explosion of 
passion like that of a powder magazine. In other cases 
the dynamic is compressed towards a point which it 
strikes like a bullet. Those impelled by this dominant 
power are commonly the men and women who have had 
the largest share in swaying the destinies of the world. 
When it is evil, or when it is exclusive and not restrained 
by other powers meant to limit it, it may work intoler- 
able evil, wasting households and provinces and nations, 
and spreading rapine and misery. When it is a selfish 
passion it may wither or consume the natural affections, 
lead parents who are superstitious to make their chil- 
dren pass through sacrificial fires, and persons naturally 
kind-hearted to become relentless persecutors, and con- 
querors when resisted to order the murders of myriads of 
innocent women and children. On the other hand, when 



236 CONTINUOUS EMOTIONS. 

it is good, benevolence will flow from it as rays do from 
the sun, and scatter a beneficent influence over a wide 
region, whereby vices are restrained, means are provided 
for healing the sick, outcasts are reclaimed, and the poor 
have their wants supplied. 

It has to be added that few are so deeply under the 
dominion of one passion as to prevent others from occa- 
sionally coming in and giving a so-called personality, a 
supposed incongruity or contradiction, to the character: 
as we have seen the miser doing a generous deed to a 
child or neighbor for whom he has taken a fancy, and 
the thief giving his money to persons in distress, and the 
murderer saving the lives of individuals in whom he has 
become interested. These peculiarities act merely as the 
abutting rocks at the ledges of a river, raising a ruffling 
here and there, but allowing the stream all the while to 
flow on with uncontrollable power. 



CHAPTER II. 

MOTIVES SWAYING MASSES. 
SECTION I. 

COMMUNITY OF FEELING. 

It is a familiar fact that feeling is apt to be increased 
when it is shared by others. How are we to account for 
this ? It is customary to refer it to sympathy, to an at- 
traction or a contagion of feeling. But these are loose 
metaphors, expressions pointing to an important fact, but 
failing to untwine the cords that make the rope, and pos- 
sibly misleading us by vague resemblances which are apt 
to be regarded as identities. I am not sure that there 
is a direct attraction of one man's feelings to those of 
another like that of gravitation, or that there is a literal 
contagion like that which takes place in fever. What- 
ever be our explanation of the undoubted circumstance, 
that men, women, and children are apt to move in masses, 
it must proceed on the principle that each man has after 
all an appetence swaying himself. The attraction that 
moves molar bodies must be a power which reaches every 
individual molecule. This is a circumstance commonly 
overlooked by historians, who write in a loose way of 
people being moved by sympathy without explaining 
what sympathy means. 

It may be posited in a general way, I think, that as it 
is an idea of an object appetible or inappetible that raises 
feeling, so it is an idea, it is a common idea, that raises 



238 MOTIVES SWAYING MASSES. 

the common feeling. If this be so it is essential, in con- 
structing a theory of the movement of masses, that we 
show how the common idea of objects appetible or inap- 
petible arises. 

First, in forming his opinions a man is apt to be 
swayed by a number of considerations not altogether di- 
rected to his impartial judgment ; in particular he may 
allow himself to believe and act simply as others do. A 
large body of mankind do not form their convictions on 
independent ground. People are often obliged to decide 
and act so rapidly and unexpectedly that they have not 
time to go round the object and survey all sides of it. 
They lay down inferior rules not universally applicable, 
though often so, and act at once upon them. How often 
do they allow themselves to act simply as others act. If 
there be an assembly of a thousand people in a hall and 
a crash is heard, and one cries out " the gallery is fall- 
ing," the more easily terrified rise and rush to the door, 
and are followed by the whole crowd trampling on each 
other. We have an example of the same kind in the 
fear which thrills through a whole army ; some are seen 
to run, having suffered a defeat, and suddenly all flee in 
disorder* In such cases as these there is often a brief 
and unnoticed ratiocination : there must be danger when 
so many are in trepidation. These are cases in which 
persons have acted rashly. But in how many cases have 
we all acted wisely in doing as others are seen doing, 
without waiting for logical proof, as when we see a crowd 
gathering for the defense of an injured man and we join 
them. Some in the end give up all independent judg- 
ment founded on reasons, and allow one or two persons 
to lead them, or they follow a multitude to do evil. We 
have here one way, though by no means the most po- 
tent, in which a community may lead the ideas and so 
the feelings of individuals. 



COMMUNITY OF FEELING. 239 

Secondly, a common public sentiment has usually a 
common appetence producing a common belief and hope, 
kindling a common enthusiasm, and issuing in a common 
movement, which individuals join because they are 
heartily with it. It may spring from an evil which all 
feel ought to be remedied, from the sense of an oppres- 
sion from which they would be delivered. Take such 
events as the Reformation in Europe, the rising against 
Charles I., in England, the French Revolution, and the 
Proclamation of Independence in America ; in all of 
these there were universal abuses, and sources of irrita- 
tion. There were thus seeds sown ready to spring up 
simultaneously under the first fostering circumstances, 
as the grain does in spring. 

Thirdly, arguments and appeals, fitted to sway our 
judgments and interest our feelings, float in the very air. 
These, pressed upon us at all times by dear friends, by 
ministers of religion, by orators, by patriots, must pro- 
duce an effect. It was thus that at the starting of the 
Crusades the people all over Europe, identifying their 
religion with the Holy Sepulchre, and feeling the dis- 
grace implied in its being in the hands of the infidel, 
eagerly listened to the preaching of Peter the Hermit, 
and were carried along with the wave. It was thus that, 
in the decadence of religion in the middle of the last cen- 
tury, so many were ready to be awakened by the thun- 
ders of Whitefleld ; even Franklin felt the influence, and 
the}'' said : " Is Saul also among the prophets ? " 

In this way a common sentiment is created. There is 
often a family faith, and young people catch the spirit of 
fathers or mothers, of older brothers and sisters. Every 
parish, every county, every province, every State is apt 
to have its periodical excitement about some question, 
great or small. There are states of society in which 



240 MOTIVES SWAYING MASSES. 

" fears are in the way," and the very air is tremulous, 
and there is a terror as of overhanging plague or of pes- 
tilence. In this sense fear is infectious. There are 
others in which there is a stimulus given to all by the 
oxygenated atmosphere which they breathe. Every age 
has its prevailing faith, and its favored medicine for cur- 
ing the ills of society or regenerating the world. Ordi- 
nary minds are sure to be sucked in by the current, and 
go willingly along with it. Only the men of independent 
thought and resolute will are able to resist the swelling 
torrent. The school boy, who has to oppose the prca- 
tices of a set of wicked companions, shows more bravery 
than the soldier on the battle-field. There may be as 
much courage shown in resisting a deluded democracy as 
in facing the scowl of a despot. 

Most of the grand movements for good in our world's 
history have thus been produced. I am aware that a 
certain class of writers in Germany, generated of the 
philosophic pantheism there and followed by literary 
men like Carlyle, in England, are fond of ascribing all 
reformations to heroes. And doubtless great undertak- 
ings have often been hatched in the brains of our great 
men. But, as Sir W. Hamilton has remarked, " Woe to 
the revolutionist who is not himself a creature of the rev- 
olution. If he anticipates he is lost; for it requires what 
no individual can supply, a long and powerful sympathy 
in a nation, to untwine the ties of custom which bind a 
people to the established and the old." The leader in a 
revolution is merely the most energetic man — such was 
Knox — who has caught the spirit which has begun to 
pervade the community. If the soil is not so far pre- 
pared the workman has, like Wycliff, Huss, or Savona- 
rola, to spend his life in plowing and harrowing, and it 
is reserved for others to see the seed spring up. But let 



REACTION OF PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 241 

us suppose that a public sentiment nas been created. 
Every man's interest in the cause is increased when his 
wife, his family, and his immediate neighbors all feel as 
he does, and are ready to carry him along. Each feels 
confirmed in his own judgment by the judgment of the 
rest. Were the sentiment confined to the individual the 
attempt would be hopeless ; but the prevalence of it stirs 
up action with the expectation of success. The river be- 
ing started is swelled by the confluence of other streams, 
as when returning spring melts the .snows on a hundred 
mountains, each one of which sends on its swollen waters. 
The body moves on with the power of a mass, and the 
momentum increases the heat which is the source of the 
motion. Each man says to his neighbor, come let us go 
on together, and they join hand in hand. There is now 
a jubilation as at a review, and a shouting as when men 
go forth to battle ; the reverberation from every height 
increasing the sound and imparting farther impulse. 
The march is now of men in array going on to the bat- 
tle, the victory, and the triumph. 

SECTION II. 

JREACTION OF PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 

It is a fact that after popular opinion has run for a time 
in one way it is apt to be arrested, and to flow in a very 
different direction ; and this in rural districts, in villages, 
in cities, in communities, in nations, in continents, in so- 
cial circles and learned societies, in religious sects, in lit- 
erature and the fine arts. A period of religious fervor 
or precisian morals is apt to be followed, as we see in the 
reign of Charles II. of England, by a time of indiffer- 
ence, or perhaps of infidelity, of scoffing and profanity, or 
profligate morality. On the other hand an age of wild 

16 



242 MOTIVES SWAYING MASSES. 

skepticism and licentiousness, as we see in the first 
French Revolution, brings back nations to religion or 
to superstition and a sober morality. A long reign of 
conservatism, in which every abuse is protected and 
every proposed change frowned down, is sure to generate 
an opposite force going on to reform, which, gathering 
to excess, bursts in a thunderstorm of political convul- 
sion, which, in its turn, drives thinking men to gather 
round the cause of order. The world thus moves on, like 
light and heat, by vibrations, and is kept from stagnation, 
like the ocean, by flows and ebbs. Even in speculative 
opinion we see like swingings of the pendulum : in the 
old earnest schools of Greece, ending in the sophists, 
who, in their turn, raised up Socrates and Plato in oppo- 
sition ; in the pleasure-loving Epicureans gendering the 
sternness of the self-righteous Stoics, while the paradoxes 
of the Stoics strengthened the easier code of the Epicu- 
reans ; in the formalism of the Schoolmen calling forth 
the induction of Bacon ; in the mathematical school of 
Descartes and Spinoza, leading to the experientialism of 
Locke, which degenerated into the skepticism of Hume 
and the sensationalism of Condillac ; which had to be 
counteracted by the d priori forms of Kant, Hegel, and 
Coleridge, which has sunk into the materialism of the 
present day. An excess of electric force at one end of a 
needle does not more certainly produce an opposite force 
at the other end than an extreme position generates its 
contrary in ail spheres of thought and action. 

In an earlier part of this work (p. 84) I have shown 
how the reaction operates in the individual, and of course 
it thus operates in all the individuals composing the mass. 
There may be lassitude produced by long excitement 
which has spent itself, leaving those who have been under 
its influence in a state of exhaustion and indisposed to 



EE ACTION OF PUBLIC SENTIMENT. 243 

exertion. The volcano has burst and the lava has cooled 
and become hardened. At this point the influence of 
temperament and of race is apt to manifest itself ; such 
peoples as the French and the Irish, like the flax, being 
seized by the excitement sooner, and losing it sooner ; 
whereas the Scotch, like their heather, catch the fire 
more slowly, but continue burning for a greater length 
of time. But this organic wave cresting and then fall- 
ing will not explain fully the reaction of a whole com- 
munity or a nation. 

The public sentiment has been created by a felt evil 
to be removed, or a wished-for good to be attained. The 
enthusiasm continues as long as the good and the evil are 
felt. But the feeling may die out. Those engaged in 
the struggle are not always satisfied with the manage- 
ment of it, or they are disappointed with the issue. 
Very often dissensions arise among them, and they quar- 
rel about the spoils. The movement has agglomerated 
like a ball of snow as it rolled on, but as it enters a new 
season it melts away. The soil has yielded its crop, 
such as it is, and it is not so ready for bearing anything 
new as men found it in the spring-time of their zeal. 

It is frequently urged that these revulsions evince 
great weakness and contradiction in human nature ; a 
people are mad in favor of enterprise this year, and next 
year all their interest in it has died down, and perhaps 
they are bent on something very different. But it may 
not have been the same people who are engaged in the 
action and reaction. There may have been numbers 
who never fell under the excitement, and are not respon- 
sible either for its kindling or its extinction ; and some 
of these may be ready to come under " a new control," 
— as, at the close of the Puritan ferment, Newton and 
Locke took up science and philosophy, and the shop- 



244 MOTIVES SWAYING MASSES. 

keepers and farmers did not wish to continue any longer 
the war with their patrons. Nay, there may all along 
have been people who disapproved of the movement and 
the movers and saw their failings, and who, though 
they durst not oppose the tide when it was so strong, are 
ready now that the ebb has set in to occupy the ground 
left by the receding waters. 

Meanwhile a new generation spring up, who have 
never entered into the feelings of their fathers, and have 
feelings of their own formed in new circumstances. The 
new race sees the excesses of which the victorious party 
have been guilty; they have grievances of their own differ- 
ent from those of their fathers, indeed, their grievances 
may refer to the conduct of their fathers. In the reac- 
tions of philosophy, idealism or sensationalism is guilty 
of oversights which the other school has to correct, but in 
doing so has itself to be corrected by the succeeding age. 

As these various causes act there is apt to be a reac- 
tion in one age against the prevailing sentiment of the 
preceding age. This is commonly initiated by youths of 
from eighteen to twenty-five years of age, but may not 
be carried by them till they are considerably advanced in 
life, by which time the seeds of a new crop may be de- 
posited to choke and to kill that which they would reap. 
It was thus that about the year 1830, when the radical 
wave in church and state was at the highest in Great 
Britain, there appeared at the back of it a hollow in the 
form of a revived ritualism, and a strong political con- 
servatism. At a later date we have seen that in the 
midst of the Catholic revival at Oxford there was hatched 
an infidelity which has burst forth like a viper. 



AN UNWRITTEN CHAPTER IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 245 
SECTION ILL 

AN UNWRITTEN CHAPTER IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

Political economy inquires into the laws regulating 
the accumulation and distribution of wealth. Some 
would say of " national wealth ; " but surely religion, 
geographical science, and the spread of general philan- 
thropy will prepare men to look to the world's wealth 
rather than a nation's wealth, and lead them to oppose 
every measure inconsistent with the general welfare, 
even though it should seem to be favorable to a given 
state. The science seeks to estimate the influence of 
physical agents, such as soil and climate, and the opera- 
tion of such economical relations as labor and capital, 
looking incidentally at government and laws. But it has 
scarcely endeavored to estimate the varied motives by 
which mankind are swayed. It has commonly assumed, 
in an avowed or in a tacit way, that mankind are swayed 
merely or mainly by self-interest, some adding, so far as 
they know what their interest is. But this is not true 
of human nature. Every man is no doubt largely swayed 
by a desire to secure happiness, and with multitudes the 
supreme end of their existence is to secure as many 
physical indulgences as possible. But the great body of 
mankind are swayed, less or more, by other considera- 
tions. Even general benevolence, especially in Christian 
countries, is an element of great potency : in awaken- 
ing human activities in raising hospitals, asylums, peni- 
tentiaries, in establishing churches, educational institu- 
tions, lower and higher, and in sending out missions to 
foreign countries to Christianize and to civilize rude and 
barbarous nations. Patriotism, too, has had a mighty 
influence in calling. forth and directing human energy: 
it has on the one hand united men in strong bonds, and 



246 MOTIVES SWAYING MASSES. 

on the other led to devastating wars, and both these have 
been swaying the destinies of the race. Then domestic 
affection, the love of parents and children, of brothers 
and sisters, of husband and wife, of relatives and friends, 
of companions and neighbors, have together had nearly 
as much influence as a narrow selfishness in leading and 
guiding the exertions of men, mostly for good, at times 
for evil, when they lead to jealousies and quarrels. Even 
selfishness may take a thousand different forms, — it may 
be the love of money, or the love of sensual indulgences, 
of showy dress, of good eating, of family aggrandizement, 
of social position, of a fine dwelling, of large landed prop- 
erty, of beautiful horses, of musical concerts, of theatri- 
cal exhibitions, or of the fine arts. All of these and 
every one of them may tend to accumulate or distribute 
wealth ; but they do so in very different ways ; and they 
call forth very different kinds of activity, and foster very 
varied callings and professions, to gratify the tastes im- 
plied. The desire to have a pleasant beverage, stimulat- 
ing but not intoxicating, is gratified by tea and coffee, 
which have to be brought from distant countries, and 
this leads to the employment of merchants and mari- 
ners, which bring the ends of the earth nearer each 
other. 

I have supposed that the motives last named operate 
selfishly, that we follow them because of the pleasure 
afforded. But these and other motives act independent 
of any idea of pleasure, or anything without or independ- 
ent of themselves, and impel men each to ends of his 
own, and each end secures activities in a particular line. 
The craving for excitement fosters theatres, and balls, 
and gambling, and horse-races, and calls forth a body of 
men and women who have to get up the amusements. 
The love of education leads to the institution of schools 



AN UNWRITTEN CHAPTER IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 2iT 

and colleges, and thus calls forth a body of teachers 
whose office it is to spread intelligence. Where there is 
a general love of art, as in Italy, painters and sculptors 
spring up and spread around them a refining influence. 
In all countries religion has had a mighty sway over the 
character, the tastes, and employments of the people, in 
some cases fostering only slavish subjection of spirit, and 
ghostly fears which prostrate the energy ; but in others 
rousing the dormant intellect, and kindling the highest 
aspiration and noblest affections. In the Church of 
Rome, in its more exalted manifestations, there is en- 
couragement given to all that may gratify the aesthetic 
senses and excite the imagination. Among Protestants 
free thought and intelligence are called into exercise, and 
these lead to independent action, to industry and perse- 
verance, and all the hardy virtues which spiing from 
these habits. 

Now political economists should look to these as well 
as to other agencies at work. They cannot explain the 
direction which human activity takes in different coun- 
tries unless they estimate them. Certainly they will 
give a very narrow, or rather an utterly perverted view 
of the causes of the production and expenditure of 
wealth, if they proceed on the principle that all men are 
governed merely by self-interest. Not that they may be 
required to enter on the discussion of human motives 
metaphysically, or give a refined analysis of their nature, 
or of the elements involved in them. But they should 
consider their operation in a general way, observe their 
sameness and their differences, give some sort of classifi- 
cation of them, and estimate the action and influence of 
each class in different ages and countries. I am not com- 
petent to write this chapter in political science. I must 
content myself with pointing out the want and leave 



248 MOTIVES SWAYING MASSES. 

others to supply it, giving only such examples as may 
show what is meant. What a contrast between England, 
with its love of real comforts and its sense of the bind- 
ing power of morality, and France, with its love of glory 
and its restlessness ; the character of the one nation has 
compelled it to seek commercial greatness and internal 
security, whereas that of the other has impelled it to 
military exploits and internal changes. What a differ- 
ence between Scotland and Spain, though Buckle im- 
agined them to be alike because both have had a rever- 
ence for religion, — but how different the religion. The 
faculties of the one people sharpened by great religious 
conflicts, and the reading of the Word of God, have been 
exerted in independent thought, in founding schools and 
colleges, in agricultural and commercial industry, which 
has overcome the disadvantages of climate ; whereas in 
the other country, the people, with a desire beneath for 
freedom, have allowed themselves, till of late years, to be 
trampled on by civil and ecclesiastical despotism. Hol- 
land and Switzerland will occur to every one as examples 
of intelligence awakened and giving a special direction to 
industries ; in the one to a battling with the threatening 
ocean and to extensive shipping, and in the other to the 
works of art, which can be performed in winter when the 
climate does not admit of out-door employments. Every 
one notices the difference between the United States 
south and the United States north; in the former the 
white population looking with contempt on labor, and 
cultivating social kindness and hospitality ; the latter 
with intellects sharpened to every kind of active pursuit. 
The wealth of the one is different, both in the collection 
and distribution, from that of the other. 

The prevailing swaying motives of a nation determine 
its character ; they do more, they determine its condi- 



AN UNWRITTEN CHAPTER IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. 240 

tion. That country is in the best state in which the 
motives have the same place absolutely and relatively 
that they have in man's original or in his regenerated and 
restored nature. As the king and governor, lifting his 
head as a tower above all the rest, should be the moral 
regulator, issuing commands and subordinating all to 
itself. This ruling power on earth should point upward 
to the power in heaven from which it derives its power, 
and this will prompt to adoration and worship, and the 
erection of temples with spires pointing to the skies. 
The individual man, while he has a business to which 
he must attend, is all the better for possessing tastes 
which he has pleasure in gratifying, such as music, or 
painting, or reading. 

When this authority rules there is room for every sort 
of activity and energy. So a nation will prosper the 
more when, besides its necessary bond of self-defense, it 
has great causes with which it is identified, say, religion, 
or education, or literature, or liberty ; and it will accom- 
plish great ends by its continued and combined efforts. 
But while a nation is one, and has a head, it has also 
many members, and each acts best when it acts in its 
own way. A community is not in its healthiest state 
when every one acts as every other acts ; the result is a 
dead uniformity, as in China, a level plain in which 
there may be fertility, but no fresh air or pleasant vari- 
ety of hill and dale, of peaks and passes. Individualism 
should have a place in every advancing community ; there 
should be men who think for themselves, who act for 
themselves, who follow their own line of thought and 
investigation. These are the men who make discoveries 
and produce the highest works of genius, say, in litera- 
ture, in science, in the fine arts, and in useful inventions. 
These are the men who give us original thoughts, who 



250 MOTIVES SWAYING MASSES. 

make discoveries and open new paths. At times their 
path may run out into eccentricities, and they do not 
adjust themselves to their age, which may combine to 
crush them. But if there is any spring in them they 
will resist and compel mankind to give them their place, 
and if rejected and despised in their own age they will 
be deified by posterity. It is by a combined centrifugal 
and centripetal force that a nation is made to take a 
progressive course. 

In the past age there has been a disposition to look 
exclusively to the intellectual powers, as calling forth the 
energies of a community. But there is a prior question, 
What calls the intellect into exercise ? An honest answer 
to this question will bring us to moral causes, probably 
beyond this, to religious causes, as awakening individuals, 
or a whole people, into life, and then the intellectual pow- 
ers carry on and perform the work, and in doing so may, 
unfortunately, become dissociated both from religion and 
morality, and may be exercised in clothing vice with 
all the graces of poetry, or in undermining the founda- 
tions of religion. Such men as David Hume and Rob- 
ert Burns could not have appeared in Scotland unless 
there had been an awakening caused by the religious 
struggles of the previous ages. Yet both helped to un- 
dermine the faith and the purity by which the reforma- 
tions were characterized. 

The rising generation, trained in homes where religion 
and morals have been carefully enforced, are apt to com- 
plain of the restrictions which have been laid upon them, 
and to imagine and argue that, under a more liberal sys- 
tem, the good would have been more attractive to them. 
But they may find as they advance in life that a greater 
liberty ends in licentiousness in the generation that fol- 
low ; and the difficulty then is to get back the high 



CONCLUSION. 251 

standard which has been lost. A simple, fixed faith and 
a rigid obedience are essential potences in the training 
of the youthful mind. Those who abandon their faith, 
but are still hoping to save morality, may discover that 
when the religion departs the morality is apt to go 
with it. But thus the ages swing between belief and 
unbelief ; feeling the creed to be too strict, they give it 
up, but are made to feel in the next generation that, 
after all, they cannot do without it, and they have to 
call it back to their aid. In such circumstances wisdom 
consists in training the young in law rigid as the bones 
of our frame, but with love as its life. This requires 
no reaction, and is every way best for the economic as 
well as for the moral and religious good of the commu- 
nity. 

CONCLUSION. 

The emotions may well be carefully studied, for they 
constitute the main means of our happiness or our misery. 
They are not to be eradicated, but guided. 

" Yet why so harsh. Why with remorseless knife 
Home to the stem prune back each bough and bud ? 
I thought the task of education was 
To strengthen, not to crush, to train and feed 
Each subject towards fulfillment of its nature, 
According to the mind of God, revealed 
In laws congenial with every kind 
And character of man." 

The emotions are all good in themselves. They all 
tend to promote our own welfare or that of others. They 
attach us to the earth on which we dwell, and to our 
fellow men, and make us feel our dependence on God. 

But they do not contain in themselves any principle 
of control. So they may lead to evil as well as good. 
They are to be guided on the one hand by our intelli- 



252 CONCLUSION. 

gence, which tells us what things are, and on the other 
hand by our conscience, which announces what things 
ought to be. When so ruled they give a high elevation 
to our nature ; and as they have descended like the rains 
from the sky, so their breathings mount upwards to 
heaven, and to God. 

The Ideas to which the mind of man can rise are said 
to be the True, the Beautiful, the Good, the three rays 
with diverse colors which constitute the light. We owe 
the first of these to the intellect, the last to the moral 
reason, while it is the office of the emotions to reveal to 
us the beautiful, or rather, as I call it, the Lovely, so 
fitted to render the Good and the True attractive. 



INDEX. 



Admiration, 139. 

Adoration, 105, 139. 

.Eschylus, 59, 60. 

^Esthetics, 16, 148-211. 

Affections, 215, 216. 

Alison, 152, 172. 

Allen, Grant, 156, 157. 

Altruistic, 113. 

Anger, 121-123. 

Anticipation, 142. 

Anxiety, 145. 

Apathy, 48. 

Appetence, 2, 7-40. 

Appetible, 111. 

Appetites, 12. 

Apprehension, 142. 

Approbation, 147. 

Architecture, 207. 

Aristotle, 4, 44, 46, 150, 184. 

Association of ideas, 17, 23-25, 45, 61- 

70, 86, 354, 178, 179, 222. 
Assurance, 142. 
Astonishment, 95, 137-139. 
Attachment, 77. 
Augustine, 150. 
Awe, 139. 

Barrow, 189, 190. 

Beattie, 175. 

Beauty, 148-177, 195. 

Bell, Sir Charles, 93, 94, 97, 98, 114, 

123-126, 136, 145, 191, 192, 201. 
Benevolence, 10. 
Bitterness, 116. 
Blushing, 145. 
Braid, 105. 
Brown, T., 4, 113. 



Burke, 102, 154. 
Burns, 17, 61, 188, 250. 

Carpenter, 18. 

Chagrin, 117. 

Chaucer, 59. 

Cheerfulness, 127. 

Cicero, 48, 184. 

Cogan, 114,122, 124, 125, 128, 130, 139, 

141. 
Coleridge, 61, 242. 
Color, 160-163. 

Community of feeling, 237-241. 
Complacency, 115. 
Condillac, 16, 242. 
Confidence in others, 133. 
Contempt, 95, 129, 130. 
Content, 126. 
Cousin, M., 151. 

Dante, 59. 

Darwin, 17, 94, 95, 97, 114, 122-125, 
128, 130, 132, 138, 139, 144, 145, 189. 
Dejection, 127. 
Depression, 127. 
Despair, 142, 144. 
Disappointment, 146. 
Discontent, 126. 
Disdain, 129, 130. 
Disgust, 95, 130, 131. 
Displicency, 115. 
Dissatisfaction, 126. 
Dominant motives, 35-37. 
Dread, 142. 

Egoistic, 112. 
Ennui, 81. 



254 



INDEX. 



Envy, 133. 
Esteem, love of, 13. 
Evangelists, 50. 
Evolution, 21-23. 
Excitement, 3, 77, 87. 
Expectation, 141. 

Fear, 140-145. 
Ferrier, 100. 
Fickleness, 231. 
Fiction, 53-61. 
Final Cause, 165, 168. 
Forms, 159. 

Gardening, 209. 
Gladness, 127. 
Goethe, 59-60. 
Good Humor, 95. 
Gratitude, 159. 
Grief, 124, 125. 

Hamilton, Sir W., 50, 66, 240. 

Hardness of heart, 132. 

Haughtiness, 129. 

Hay, 154. 

Helmholtz, 161, 162. 

Heredity, 22, 96. 

Hobbes, 16, 184. 

Hogarth, 159. 

Holland, Sir H., 102. 

Hope, 136-145. 

Horace, 59, 60. 

Horror, 142, 144. 

Human frame, 200. 

Hume, 18, 74, 250. 

Humility, 115, 129. 

Humor, good and bad, 27, 130. 

Humor and wit, 188. 

Hutcheson, 148, 150, 152, 163, 172, 184. 

Hypnotism, 105. 

Idea, 2, 42-75, 111, 169-175. 

Imaginary scenes, 99. 

Immediate emotions, 113, 123-136. 

Impudence, 145. 

Indignation, 121. 

Infinite, 189, 192. 

Irritation, 121. 



Jealousy, 134-136. 
Job, 141. 
Johnson, S., 184. 
Joy, 123, 124. 

Kant, 60, 148, 154, 170, 186, 192, 242. 

Laughter, 96, 185. 
Locke, 16, 242. 
Love, 216. 

Love of sexes, 218-220. 
Ludicrous, 148, 184-189. 

McVicar, 151. 

Malignancy, 121. 

Meekness, 130. 

Melancholy, 127, 128. 

Modesty, 145. 

Money, love of, 23. 

Moods of mind, 222, 223. 

Moral approbation and disapprobation, 

119. 
Mortification, 116. 
ISountains, 199. 
Music, 155, 158, 207. 

Native Tastes and Talents, 11. 
Novels, 54. 

Ocean, 200. 

Old Age, 81, 82. 

Organic Affection, 3, 88-108. 

Pain, 9, 98. 

Painting, 209, 211. 

Passion, 215, 232-236. 

Patience, 131. 

Peevishness, 133.. 

Phantasm, 43. 

Physiognomy, 97, 98. 

Picturesque, 184-187. 

Pity, 105, 132. 

Plato, 149-151, 159, 166, 170, 191. 

Pleasure, 9. 

Poetry, 58. 

Pope, 60. 

Power, love of, 15. 

Praise, love of, 13. 



INDEX. 



255 



Prejudice, 229, 230. 
Prepossessions, 227-229. 
Pride, 128, 129. 
Primary Appetences, 16. 
Property, love of, 151. 
Prospective emotions, 113, 136-147. 
Pythagoras, 155, 159. 

Eacine, 60. 

Rage, 121, 123. 

Rapture, 127. 

Reaction, 84, 85, 241-244. 

Regret, 115. 

Rejoicing in success of others, 136. 

Relations in beauty, 166-171. 

Relatives, attachment to, 10. 

Remorse, 120. 

Repining, 119, 131. 

Repulsions, 79-82. 

Resentment, 131. 

Resignation, 131. 

Resistance, 131. 

Retrospective emotions, 113, 115-123. 

Revenge, 121. 

Reverence, 136. 

Ruskin, 151, 154, 169. 

Scorn, 130. 

Scott, Sir W., 183, 191. 

Sculpture, 208. 
Secondary appetences, 16-25. 
Self-accusation, 116. 
Self-adulation, 116. 
Self-approbation, 118, 119. 
Self-chiding, 116. 
Self-condemnation, 118. 
Self-depreciation, 116. 
Self-esteem, 115. 
Self-gratulation, 119. 
Self-humiliation, 119, 128. 
Self-reproach, 115. 
Self-respect, 129. 
Self-righteousness, 115, 119. 
Self-satisfaction, 115. 
Self-sufficiency, 116. 
Sensation, 153-156. 
Shaftesbury, 151. 
Shakespeare, 60, 61, 138, 175. 



Shame, 95, 145. 

Shelley, 59. 

Shyness, 145. 

Smith, Adam, 19. 

Sneering, 130. 

Spencer, Herbert, 107, 108, 115, 116, 

187, 196. 
Society, love of, 13. 
Sorrow, 123, 125. 
Spirits, good and bad, 127. 
Spontaneous flow of thought, 72-76. 
Stewart, D., 16. 
Stoics, 48, 242. 
Sublimity, 152, 192-198. 
Submission, 131. 
Sulkiness, 130, 131. 
Sully, 161, 162. 
Surprise, 95, 137-139. 
Sympathy, 102-104, 132, 133, 170-172. 

Taste, 148. 

Temper, 121, 132, 226, 227. 

Temperament, 224. 225. 

Terror, 142-144. 

Testimony of good conscience, 119. 

Thomson, 60. 

Trees, 194-197. 

Turnbull, 18. 

Undeveloped tendencies, 37-40. 

Vanity, 129. 
Veneration, 139. 
Vengeance, 121. 
Vindictiveness, 121. 
Virgil, 59. 
Voltaire, 60. 

Waterfalls, 199. 
Weeping, 126. 
Will, 1, 19, 27, 68. 
Wit, 186-188. 
Wonder, 139. 
Wordsworth, 61, 175, 197. 
Wrath, 121. 

Young, T., 161. 
Youth, 233. 



DE. McCOSH'S WOEKS. 



METHOD OF DIVINE GOVERNMENT. 8vo $2.00 

TYPICAL FORMS. 8vo 2.00 

INTUITIONS OF THE MIND. 8vo 2.00 

AN EXAMINATION OF MR. J. S. MILLS' PHILOSOPHY. 

8vo 2.00 

HISTORY OF SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY. 8vo 2.00 

CHRISTIANITY AND POSITIVISM. 12mo 1.75 

REPLY TO TYNDALL. 12mo 50 

THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS. IS IT SUFFICIENT? 

12mo, flexible 50 

bound , 75 



ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 

530 Broad\tat, New York. 



/, 



LI 



tt 



&ofc ^' 






DR. MeCOSH'S LOGIC. 



LAWS OF DISCURSIVE THOUGHT, BEING A TEXT 
BOOK OF FORMAL LOGIC. $1.50. 



The peculiarity of this work is that while it treats fully of the Propo- 
sition and Argument, it unfolds especially the nature of the Notion, on 
which both Judgment and Reasoning depend. It distinguishes between 
the Abstract and General Notion, and thus determines the exact nature 
of Substitutive and Attributive Judgments; shows when the Predicate is 
quantified and when it is not ; clears up the subject of Immediate Infer- 
ences ; and proves that there is a difference between reasoning in which 
the relation is one of Equivalence (as in Mathematics) and reasoning in 
which the relation is one of Extension and Comprehension ; and would 
thus settle the questions that have been discussed by Kant, by Hamilton, 
and Jevons. 

This work has been favorably noticed and recommended of late in the 
highest philosophical reviews of Germany, Italy, and France ; in the Zeit- 
schrift fiir Philosophie, by Dr. Ulrici, one of the editors ; in the La Filoso- 
phia delle Scuoli Italienne (Dec, 1878), by M. Ferri, one of the editors; 
and in the Revue Philosophique de France (June, 1879), by M. Liard. Dr. 
Ulrici says, "I hesitate not to declare that Dr. McCosh's work is the 
best text-book of logic in the English language." M. Liard says, " This 
is an excellent manual of Formal Logic extensively used in the schools of 
the United States. But it has a higher significance. It is the work of a 
mind penetrating, methodical, and reducing the complex subject to sim- 
plicity ; and is fitted to help on the solution of the grand questions opened 
by Hamilton and still discussed among logicians." 

This work is used in a considerable number of the Colleges and Upper 
Schools of the United States and of Canada; and strong testimonies have 
been given, both by teachers and pupils, in favor of its being practically 
adapted to the understanding of youth. It is brief, simple, and intelli- 
gible, and abounds in examples and illustrations. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



